Income tax versus sales tax......sm

Since sales tax was brought up below, let's take a little poll..........

Do you believe that a federal sales tax to replace the current income tax system would be a good move?  Do you think it would be more fair or less fair and why?

I'll post my opinion separate from this.

• Income tax versus sales tax......sm - m
  • I am not in favor of a federal sales tax.... - sam
    • That's the most sensible thing I've read on this board - wannie
    • Perhaps an even better alternative.... sm - m
      • Good argument for the 10% threshold. :) nm - sam
  • Income tax - mt
  • I would favor a federal sales tax if - gourdpainter
    • One more reason why I favor federal sales tax....sm - m
  • I believe that a federal sales tax........sm - m
    • I like the idea at the end of your statement - dj
    • Well...the problem with that, that I see.... - sam
      • Thanks for shedding that light sm - m

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there were no exemptions whatsoever.  If, say you earned a dollar, you owed a dime.  No exceptions regarding where the money comes from.  Tax welfare benefits too.  Social Security is already taxed for some recipients.  Those of us who receive Social Security and have enough income to pay taxes on 85% (maximum) of it ALL had the opportunity for a better life.  Some took advantage of that and some didn't.  Young people today have little hope of receiving Social Security and they also have little hope of being able to live while saving for their future.

In my usual long-winded way, t hat's what I think.

wants to raise up to 8%. I don't see how doing what he is doing is going to help the city at all, especially since he had his hand out for stimulus money.

I'm surprised Rendel didn't jump in and just hand money over to him since he loves the city so much. Or is he going to give a bunch of money to Phila. and to heck with the rest of the state as usual?

How could that be?

Poster tried to get you to read this before but obviously ignored by most.  You might want to remember this at the polls.........  This was just back in March when this was attempted by Obama.. your hero!

WASHINGTON - Presidential candidates John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton interrupted their campaign schedules to return to the Senate for votes on taxes and spending likely to become key points of contention in the race for the White House.

Votes on tax cuts and on a one-year ban on pet projects topped the Senate’s agenda before an expected late-night vote yesterday to pass a $3 trillion Democratic budget blueprint. The nonbinding plan predicts a balanced budget in four years and promises generous increases for many domestic programs, but achieves those goals only by assuming major tax increases when President Bush’s tax cuts expire in about three years.  This was found out and release the morning after they tried to get this passed in the mddle of the night back in March. 

Obama(D-Ill.) and Clinton (D-N.Y.) both promise to reverse Bush’s tax cuts for wealthier taxpayers, but the Democratic budget they’ll be voting for would allow income tax rates to go up on individuals making as little as $31,850 and couples earning $63,700 or more.

Notice how many of the really mean posts, like the one who called Senator Obama, Osambo, are pro-McCain/Palin.  John McCain and Sarah Palin never focus on the issues.  Listen to them closely - what exactly are they going to do about unemployment, foreclosures, poverty, the meth epidemic across the nation, health care, taxes, and the war that has been going on far too long?  Can you answer these questions?  All John McCain does is talk about Obama.  John McCain is losing the election and running scared, so he attacks Obama.  Check out the facts.  Obama was 8 years old when Bill Ayers was a radical.  Ayers is in his 60s and a washed-up radical.  Have you even looked at a picture of this man?  It will make you laugh when you realize this is the guy McCain is associating Obama with in hopes that McCain can win the election.  It is one attack after another.  Senator Obama was raised in Kansas by his "white" grandmother.  Senator Obama has two young children whom he takes to soccer practice regularly.  McCain is making Obama sound like some kind of terrorist.  How many terrorists take their kids to soccer practice?  Do you think Senator Obama would jeporadize his children's lives by being a terrorist?  His kids look pretty well-adjusted to me.

I live in Arizona where McCain is our senator.  Arizona also has a huge meth epidemic, high percentage of poverty, horrible health care, and racism to say the least. Even Arizona's State Governor, Janet Napolitano, is endorsing Senator Obama.  She has had to work side-by-side with John McCain and she isn't even endorsing him.  Do you think the Governor of Arizona would endorse Senator Obama if he was the terrorist that the McCain/Palin ticket is trying to make him out to be.  Even a 1st grader could see that McCain is bitter because he is losing.

You have to be really gullible to believe anything the McCain/Palin ticket has to say.  Honestly ask yourself what you think John Mcain is going to do for this country in the next four years if he can't even help his own state of Arizona.

in this household. Sure, we could lose our jobs, however, we are quite prepared for something like that. We have an emergency fund in place that would last at least a year (a year's worth of mortgage and utilility payments), we don't have a car payment, all credit cards are paid off and we have CDs, retirement funds, etc. It's called planning for the future and planning for the unexpected. We have paid into unemployment, so of course we would take it if we had to.

So if someone called me a big, fat, smelly, ugly, loud-mouthed, foul hag that could qualify as an observation (in your words) and would therefore be acceptable?  I mean, technically someone could say they OBSERVED these traits in me.  When does something cross the line and become a personal attack?

My take on all this is that if it originates from one of the C-posters it's an observation.  If it originates from an L-poster it's an attack.  Not always, but in general.  Could be due to the whole political board system have a very very far right-leaning slant........

to change the downward course of the nation.  Haven't you been listening?

Stimulus means SPENDING

Non-refundable tax rebates means every $1.00 spent creates $1.02 in economic activity. 2 freaking cents (makes sense to the pubs.....I guess)

Infrastructure - every dollar spent equals $1.59 in economic activity (bridges, roads, etc.)

Food stamps (which the pubs want to cut out of the bill) - every dollar spent equals $1.73 in economic activity. This is the single most productive stimulus we have. Food stamps will get SPENT, unlike tax rebates.

If the pubs have their way, the bill will be 42% tax cuts which will not benefit job creation or improve the economy. They want to fail. Why? And you all call your senators to support this? If it gets pushed through like this, you have only yourselves to blame when everything goes to helll. You can't blame Obama for this cluster.

Article from Juan Gonzalez, a NY Daily News columnist, RE:  Hugo Chavez and his oil versus American oil companies:

from own party who make their living promoting the repub cause.  Big difference in motivation.

I agree that the bill is a bit confusing, but I think it's great so many of us are actually looking into it to find out what it is really about.  I think the New York Times article below clarifies the income guidelines pretty well.  I also want to say that I heard that if we go with Bush's $5 billion plan for SCHIP it will be grossly underfunded, as apparently, it is already underfunded and many kids who qualify with the current income guidelines cannot get on SCHIP, so I hope he is willing to at least compromise and give more money to the program if his veto isn't overridden.  It's for a good cause, darn it!

"Oct. 16 — It is the $83,000 question: Could children with that amount of family income qualify for subsidized health insurance under the bipartisan bill passed by Congress and vetoed by President Bush?

When the House votes Thursday on whether to override the veto, Republicans will insist that the answer is yes. They will express outrage that rich children could get coverage from the government while hundreds of thousands of poor children still go uninsured.

Democrats say it is a total distortion for Mr. Bush and his Republican allies to say that the bill allows coverage with family incomes up to $83,000 a year.

Who is right? Each side appears to overstate its case. The bill does not encourage or prohibit coverage of children with family incomes at that level.

Of the 6.6 million children now covered by the program, most come from families with incomes well below $83,000, and the bill would give states financial incentives to sign up low-income children who are eligible but not enrolled.

In general, children with family incomes below the poverty level ($20,650 for a family of four) are eligible for Medicaid. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program is meant for families with too much income to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private insurance.

Mr. Bush said Monday that the bill would expand eligibility for the program up to $83,000.

But Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and an architect of the bill, said Tuesday that the president’s argument was specious. “About 92 percent of the kids will be under 200 percent of the poverty level,” Mr. Hatch said at a news conference with supporters of the bill, including the singer Paul Simon.

Another Republican author of the bill, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, said the White House claims were “flatly incorrect.”

States establish income limits for the child health program. A recent survey by the Congressional Research Service found that 32 states had set limits at twice the poverty level or less, while 17 states had limits from 220 percent to 300 percent of the poverty level. Only one state, New Jersey, has a higher limit. It offers coverage to children with family incomes up to 350 percent of the poverty level, or $72,275 for a family of four.

In New York, which covers children up to 250 percent of the poverty level, the Legislature this year passed a bill that would have raised the limit to 400 percent of the poverty level, or $82,600 for a family of four. The Bush administration rejected the proposal, saying it would have allowed the substitution of public coverage for private insurance.

States that cover middle-income children often charge premiums and co-payments on a sliding scale, so the coverage is not free.

While the bill passed by Congress would not prohibit states from setting the income limit at $82,600, it would set stringent new standards for such coverage.

In general, after Oct. 1, 2010, a state could not receive any federal money to cover children above 300 percent of the poverty level unless a vast majority of its low-income children — those at or below 200 percent of the poverty level — were already covered. To meet this test, a state would have to show that the proportion of its low-income children with insurance was at least equal to the average for the 10 states with the highest rates of coverage of low-income children.

Moreover, if a state was allowed to cover children over 300 percent of the poverty level, the federal payment for those children would, in most cases, be reduced. New Jersey and New York would be exempt from the cuts if they met the bill’s other requirements.

Citing that provision, the White House said Oct. 6 that the bill included a “grandfather clause” allowing higher payment rates for children above 300 percent of the poverty level in New Jersey and New York.

Jocelyn A. Guyer, a researcher at the Health Policy Institute of Georgetown University, said: “This is a wildly contentious political issue, but it’s largely a theoretical question. More than 99 percent of children in the program are below three times the poverty level, and New York is the only state that has expressed any interest in going to four times the poverty level.”

Suzanne Esterman, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Human Services, said that 3,000 of the 124,000 children in the state program — about 2.4 percent — had family incomes exceeding three times the poverty level.

Some of the current confusion can be traced back to a bill introduced in March by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, both Democrats. They would have explicitly allowed all states to expand eligibility to families making four times the poverty level. But the bill passed by Congress did not go that far." -by Robert Pear

Barack Obama introduced the Patriot Employer Act of 2007 to provide a tax credit to companies that maintain or increase the number of full-time workers in America relative to those outside the US; maintain their corporate headquarters in America; pay decent wages; prepare workers for retirement; provide health insurance; and support employees who serve in the military.

PLEASE, everybody, see that Barack Obama is for keeping jobs in America and has shown this by passing this tax credit to encourage jobs in America.  This is something he has already done, so we know he will help us fight this in the future.  PLEASE DO NOT VOTE FOR HILLARY, who supports our jobs being outsourced.

I have stood behind Barack Obama and have sent emails questioning what he plans to do to help MTs in America.  Just do the research and spread the word, PLEASE, not to vote for Hillary and to maintain support with Barack, who has shown he is BEHIND US!!

I believe that one of the ways we can ALL show support is to refuse to accept a position with a company that outsources offshore.  I used to work for Spheris and did so for five years, but the company I work for now does not offshore and I will continue on in this direction.  LET'S HELP OUR AMERICAN-BASED MT COMPANIES, AS SMALL AS THEY MAY BE, PROSPER!!  Apply for a job with a company that does not offshore!  We have to start somewhere!

I promise to never work for a company that offshores...will you?  I promise to help keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House...will you?

I think it is interesting that issues are made on Sen. McCain's health, but I have heard nothing about Sen. Biden's past health issues.  Approximately 20 years ago, Sen. Biden underwent surgery to repair two brain aneurysms.  I would consider that a pretty serious issue for the #2 man in charge of our country. 

There have been reports in the news about Sen. Biden getting some history mixed up, and misspeaking at times.  Could this not so much be something to joke about as it could be the long-term effect of his prior condition.

Just something that has been on my mind.');>