Middle Class Tax Cut a Myth?

I have no links but I'm watching Fox and they're saying while some middle class tax cuts went out in the stimulus bill the Dems are stripping them out of the budget. Guess I gotta dig up my broken promises list and add an entry.

Mirage wrote:

I have no links but I'm watching Fox and they're saying while some middle class tax cuts went out in the stimulus bill the Dems are stripping them out of the budget. Guess I gotta dig up my broken promises list and add an entry.

Here is the link for the progress of Obama's campaign promises.
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
He has already kept 20 promises, while 3 are listed as being broken. The fact that you would want to keep a "broken promises" list says that you aren't interested in looking at his performance as President objectively.

Mirage wrote:

I have no links but I'm watching Fox and they're saying while some middle class tax cuts went out in the stimulus bill the Dems are stripping them out of the budget. Guess I gotta dig up my broken promises list and add an entry.

Instead of relying on the GOP's house organ Fixed News,you could have done less than 5 minutes of research by googling 'middle class tax cuts' and found this...........

Quote :

Obama's middle-class tax cut is locked in place for the next two years as part of the stimulus package he signed into law last month, but Orszag told reporters today that the White House will have to use those two years to figure out how to keep that tax cut in place for middle-class families beyond 2010.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Economy/story?id=7166810&page=1

Artie60438 wrote:

Mirage wrote:

I have no links but I'm watching Fox and they're saying while some middle class tax cuts went out in the stimulus bill the Dems are stripping them out of the budget. Guess I gotta dig up my broken promises list and add an entry.

Instead of relying on the GOP's house organ Fixed News,you could have done less than 5 minutes of research by googling 'middle class tax cuts' and found this...........

Quote :

Obama's middle-class tax cut is locked in place for the next two years as part of the stimulus package he signed into law last month, but Orszag told reporters today that the White House will have to use those two years to figure out how to keep that tax cut in place for middle-class families beyond 2010.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Economy/story?id=7166810&page=1

Plus it was discussed during the President's press conference and in the analysis afterward. It really trips me out that a lot of posters don't even bother to watch something as important as a Presidential address or a news conference. Both are opportunities to get information directly from the source. Personally, I find it much more interesting than most of the trash that's on prime time television. Besides, with DVRs and VCRs and Internet replays, there really is no excuse to miss a Presidential television event.

I realize that I'm a political junkie, and it's just my opinion, but it seems to me that if you're going to post about politics and national and world events on a forum like this, then it's realy kind of intellectually lazy and irresponsible not to tune in and see what the President has to say.

Scorpion wrote:

Artie60438 wrote:

Mirage wrote:

I have no links but I'm watching Fox and they're saying while some middle class tax cuts went out in the stimulus bill the Dems are stripping them out of the budget. Guess I gotta dig up my broken promises list and add an entry.

Instead of relying on the GOP's house organ Fixed News,you could have done less than 5 minutes of research by googling 'middle class tax cuts' and found this...........

Quote :

Obama's middle-class tax cut is locked in place for the next two years as part of the stimulus package he signed into law last month, but Orszag told reporters today that the White House will have to use those two years to figure out how to keep that tax cut in place for middle-class families beyond 2010.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Economy/story?id=7166810&page=1

Plus it was discussed during the President's press conference and in the analysis afterward. It really trips me out that a lot of posters don't even bother to watch something as important as a Presidential address or a news conference. Both are opportunities to get information directly from the source. Personally, I find it much more interesting than most of the trash that's on prime time television. Besides, with DVRs and VCRs and Internet replays, there really is no excuse to miss a Presidential television event.

I realize that I'm a political junkie, and it's just my opinion, but it seems to me that if you're going to post about politics and national and world events on a forum like this, then it's realy kind of intellectually lazy and irresponsible not to tune in and see what the President has to say.

I have been making sure to watch all of Obama's press conferences. I will admit that in the past, I did not watch Bush's press conferences because I would become so angry listening to him.. Did Bush ever have press conferences like Obama's last one where he gave a short address and then start taking questions from the press for an hour? I was really impressed with the way Obama handled those questions and wanted to know if you ever saw Bush demonstrate the obvious grasp of issues that Obama has?

sparks wrote:

Did Bush ever have press conferences like Obama's last one where he gave a short address and then start taking questions from the press for an hour?

Yeah, that's pretty standard. Bush's conferences were slightly shorter, and there weren't enough of them, in my opinion.

sparks wrote:

I was really impressed with the way Obama handled those questions and wanted to know if you ever saw Bush demonstrate the obvious grasp of issues that Obama has?

In my opinion the press conference wasn't a very good format for President Bush, which may explain why he didn't have more of them. I'm quite impressed with the way that Obama interacts with the press, at least up to this point. He's a smart guy, almost "professorial" at times, but he still manages to make things understandable for people watching at home.

What really trips me out is it is looking like the middle class tax cut is vanishing in committee and now the cut in charitable donations just at a time when we need to encourage charitable donations. Looks like the government thinks Citicorp and others needs that money more.

The cut in tax favorable charitable donations is simply inexcusable! Especially when everyone is finding it harder to afford to donate to worthy causes.

Mirage wrote:

What really trips me out is it is looking like the middle class tax cut is vanishing in committee and now the cut in charitable donations just at a time when we need to encourage charitable donations.

Artie's quoted an article above that indicates that the middle class tax cut will be in place at least through the end of 2010, so this is a non-issue.

Mirage wrote:

The cut in tax favorable charitable donations is simply inexcusable! Especially when everyone is finding it harder to afford to donate to worthy causes.

I thought that President Obama explained this provision really well during his press conference, which you obviously didn't watch.

Here's the Q and A:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032403036.html?wprss=rss_politics

Quote :

QUESTION: Mr. President, are you -- thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Are you reconsidering your plan to cut the interest rate deduction for mortgages and for charities? And do you regret having proposed that in the first place?


OBAMA: No, I think it's -- I think it's the right thing to do, where we've got to make some difficult choices. Here's what we did with respect to tax policy.


What we said was that, over the last decade, the average worker, the average family have seen their wages and incomes flat. Even in times where supposedly we were in the middle of an economic boom, as a practical matter, their incomes didn't go up. And so, well, we said, "Let's give them a tax cut. Let's give them some relief, some help, 95 percent of American families."


Now, for the top 5 percent, they're the ones who typically saw huge gains in their income. I -- I fall in that category. And what we've said is, for those folks, let's not renew the Bush tax cuts, so let's go back to the rates that existed back in -- during the Clinton era, when wealthy people were still wealthy and doing just fine, and let's look at the -- the level at which people can itemize their deductions.


And what we've said is: Let's go back to the rate that existed under Ronald Reagan. People are still going to be able to make charitable contributions. It just means, if you give $100 and you're in this tax bracket, at a certain point, instead of being able to write off 36 percent or 39 percent, you're writing off 28 percent.


Now, if it's really a charitable contribution, I'm assuming that that shouldn't be the determining factor as to whether you're giving that $100 to the homeless shelter down the street.


And so this provision would affect about 1 percent of the American people. They would still get deductions. It's just that they wouldn't be able to write off 39 percent.


In that sense, what it would do is it would equalize -- when I give $100, I'd get the same amount of deduction as when some -- a bus driver who's making $50,000 a year, or $40,000 a year, gives that same $100. Right now, he gets 28 percent -- he gets to write off 28 percent. I get to write off 39 percent. I don't think that's fair.


So I think this was a good idea. I think it is a realistic way for us to raise some revenue from people who've benefited enormously over the last several years.


It's not going to cripple them. They'll still be well-to-do. And, you know, ultimately, if we're going to tackle the serious problems that we've got, then, in some cases, those who are more fortunate are going to have to pay a little bit more.


QUESTION: It's not the well-to-do people. It's the charities. Given what you've just said, are you confident the charities are wrong when they contend that this would discourage giving?


OBAMA: Yes, I am. I mean, if you look at the evidence, there's very little evidence that this has a significant impact on charitable giving.


I'll tell you what has a significant impact on charitable giving, is a financial crisis and an economy that's contracting. And so the most important thing that I can do for charitable giving is to fix the economy, to get banks lending again, to get businesses opening their doors again, to get people back to work again. Then I think charities will do just fine.

I guess this all is very simple. If you're in the middle class and in the final version your taxes rise I will be proven right and you will be proven wrong. Guess it won't be long now before we have the definitive answer on that for 2009 taxes. I said back in the primaries to take that so-called tax cut with a grain of salt. But I find it quite foolish to attack the charitable donations deduction, especially on principle.

Mirage wrote:

I guess this all is very simple. If you're in the middle class and in the final version your taxes rise I will be proven right and you will be proven wrong. Guess it won't be long now before we have the definitive answer on that for 2009 taxes. I said back in the primaries to take that so-called tax cut with a grain of salt. But I find it quite foolish to attack the charitable donations deduction, especially on principle.

If you want to discuss the "principle" involved with charitable donation tax deductions, the rich should not receive a 39% write-off when the middle-class only receive 28%.

Scorpion wrote:

Yeah, that's pretty standard. Bush's conferences were slightly shorter, and there weren't enough of them, in my opinion.

Scorpion,Here's a statistic you might be interested in that I've been trying to find for some time. Apparently Bush had a PC about every 2 months.

As of Jan. 20: Bush had conducted 182 press conferences – 45 on his own, and 137 in joint appearances with other world leaders – as of Jan. 20, according to a count kept by Martha Kumar, presidency scholar in political science at Towson University and a student of the president and the press.
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/bush_encounters_by_numbers.html

sparks wrote:

Mirage wrote:

I guess this all is very simple. If you're in the middle class and in the final version your taxes rise I will be proven right and you will be proven wrong. Guess it won't be long now before we have the definitive answer on that for 2009 taxes. I said back in the primaries to take that so-called tax cut with a grain of salt. But I find it quite foolish to attack the charitable donations deduction, especially on principle.

If you want to discuss the "principle" involved with charitable donation tax deductions, the rich should not receive a 39% write-off when the middle-class only receive 28%.

It also only affects 1% of Americans. Besides that,the 28% was OK with St Ronnie,so I can't understand what Mirage is complaining about.

sparks wrote:

Mirage wrote:

I guess this all is very simple. If you're in the middle class and in the final version your taxes rise I will be proven right and you will be proven wrong. Guess it won't be long now before we have the definitive answer on that for 2009 taxes. I said back in the primaries to take that so-called tax cut with a grain of salt. But I find it quite foolish to attack the charitable donations deduction, especially on principle.

If you want to discuss the "principle" involved with charitable donation tax deductions, the rich should not receive a 39% write-off when the middle-class only receive 28%.

As far as I am concerned charitable donations should be 100% deductible and without the need to itemize. Don't give me this "the rich crap." If it goes to charity who the hell cares! So what? The money goes to charity without the government blowing most of it on "overhead." Maybe the government outta match dollar for dollar every contribution to charity. When it goes to a charity it certainly does more good than when the government gets its grubby hands on it.

Artie60438 wrote:

sparks wrote:

Mirage wrote:

I guess this all is very simple. If you're in the middle class and in the final version your taxes rise I will be proven right and you will be proven wrong. Guess it won't be long now before we have the definitive answer on that for 2009 taxes. I said back in the primaries to take that so-called tax cut with a grain of salt. But I find it quite foolish to attack the charitable donations deduction, especially on principle.

If you want to discuss the "principle" involved with charitable donation tax deductions, the rich should not receive a 39% write-off when the middle-class only receive 28%.

It also only affects 1% of Americans. Besides that,the 28% was OK with St Ronnie,so I can't understand what Mirage is complaining about.

What flawed logic! If it only affects 1% why do it? But you are wrong. The deduction benefit may affect few but those who receive that money who may now receive less would most certainly feel the pinch needlessly. So there y'all go picking on the poor people & puppies again through Big Brother socialism.

Mirage wrote:

Artie60438 wrote:

It also only affects 1% of Americans. Besides that,the 28% was OK with St Ronnie,so I can't understand what Mirage is complaining about.

What flawed logic! If it only affects 1% why do it? But you are wrong. The deduction benefit may affect few but those who receive that money who may now receive less would most certainly feel the pinch needlessly. So there y'all go picking on the poor people & puppies again through Big Brother socialism.

Why should the rich be able to take a higher deduction than the average American?

Why should anybody pay Federal income taxes at all? It's not the government's business to regulate people's lives by way of crushing taxation of income and energy usage, not to mention vices like smoking & drinking.

It is time for the government to stop wasting money. I hear now the Dems talked Lugar into a spending bill for Pakistan. Guess what? I don't live in Pakistan and don't know why I should have to pay for it's infrastructure especially when for example roads and bridges in my own town are in need of repair anyway.

Let me be perfectly clear. It matters little how good the spending idea sounds the government is literally confiscating the people's money unnecessarily. Is is outright theft! So don't give me what amounts to rich folks don't get robbed enough because nobody outta be getting ripped off. Nobody.

Mirage wrote:

Why should anybody pay Federal income taxes at all?

National defense,for starters and infrastructure like highways,bridges,and airports.

Bad reason. We already pay a Federal tax on fuel for roads. Nice try.

And take a real good look at the airport taxes! Definitely we do NOT need to pay income taxes to support an airport, no how no way!

Mirage wrote:

Bad reason. We already pay a Federal tax on fuel for roads. Nice try.

And take a real good look at the airport taxes! Definitely we do NOT need to pay income taxes to support an airport, no how no way!

:bangwall: What do you think this country would look like if we abolished the Federal income tax?

It would look like a free country for a change.

Please note that in numerous posts I have advocated elimination of the PERSONAL Federal income tax coupled with a massive reduction in spending.

You brought up airports. No way in hell a airports should get money from my income involuntarily, much less private or other municipal airports. None. But add to that the high percentage cost of a ticket going to taxes & fees. Heck many airports charge you $5 or $10 on a connecting flight even if you never deplane. How are you benefiting from a stop along a scheduled route? Just makes your trip take longer is all. Yet you get to pay "an inconvenience fee" all said & done. Typical dumb government thinking.

Mirage wrote:

It would look like a free country for a change.

Please note that in numerous posts I have advocated elimination of the PERSONAL Federal income tax coupled with a massive reduction in spending.

You brought up airports. No way in hell a airports should get money from my income involuntarily, much less private or other municipal airports. None. But add to that the high percentage cost of a ticket going to taxes & fees. Heck many airports charge you $5 or $10 on a connecting flight even if you never deplane. How are you benefiting from a stop along a scheduled route? Just makes your trip take longer is all. Yet you get to pay "an inconvenience fee" all said & done. Typical dumb government thinking.

How about the goods you receive as a result of airports?

Nope. The business pay taxes, you the consumer pays taxes, there are fees. So that's covered.

Mirage wrote:

Nope. The business pay taxes, you the consumer pays taxes, there are fees. So that's covered.

What I meant was without airports,how would goods get across the country in a short time.

Trains.

Mirage wrote:

Trains.

Days vs hrs.