Please justify holding hostage $13 billion of UE benefits VS $700 billion tax break for wealthy

To extend unemployment the republicans want 13 billion in spending cuts. Sounds fair. To extend the tax cuts for the rich, shouldn't we also come up with 70 billion in tax cuts?As far as that 700 billion. It is the governments money. It is the price that we pay to live in our society. If you don't like how it, move to a different country which has tax rules that you prefer. It is time to stop stealing from the future generations and for todays adults to start pulling their own weight. But you can image how unpopular that is. No one likes government spending or tax breaks. Unless of course it is giving them money.

Oh Barry wrote:

People making $250K/yr aren't millionaires and billionaires. Get off the lib talking points. It only makes you appear even more ignorant.

To answer the OP, no one is giving $700 billion to anyone. It's not the government's money. But somehow you just can't accept that. You are living in a different reality. This class warfare mentality has got to stop. It has warped your common sense.

INT. CAPITOL HILL-NIGHTDEMOCRAT: Are you willing to hold up unemployment benefits totaling 13 billing?REPUBLICAN; If they're not paid for. We can't put the burden on future generations.DEMOCRAT: Well, where should we cut 700 billion to keep your tax cuts in place for people making more than $250K? If you don't want to burden the future generations, what are your proposals?REPUBLICAN: F*** the future generations. I want my money.

People making $250K aren't mills and bills but they can afford to pay their fair share. Everyone will have to so why shouldn't they pay.

Rational Economics wrote:

I don't speak for Reagan, but it's like this: millionaires and billionaires are not liabilities on the national balance sheet like unemployment benefits. A tax cut is not a gift, but merely the cessation of confiscation. To equate tax cuts to handouts to the rich assumes that all money is collectively owned, which is a socialist notion.

/thread

Why is 36% not their fair share when others pay lower marginal rates? It would seem the same percentage is the very definition of fair share. Especially with the deductions and credits getting phased out for the higher incomes and the AMT. In the Republican plan these higher incomes are still paying higher rates on the upper income(and due to phase outs higher rates on their lower incomes). You are asking them to pay more than their fair share mathematically speaking. You are saying they pay more than they anyone into the tax pool, but you think they should pay even more.

Not Proven wrote:

People making $250K aren't mills and bills but they can afford to pay their fair share. Everyone will have to so why shouldn't they pay.

I agree with people paying their fair share. That's why I would support the complete expiration of the Bush tax cuts. That way, most of the 40% who don't pay anything in federal taxes will finally pay at least a little bit.

I'm against the $700B welfare gift for those above the 250K mark, which I am as well. We don't need welfare since we have so much. My neighborhood has private schools for whites who don't want blacks and Mexicans around. Everyone drives a Prius, Honda, Subaru. One dozen of my neighbors have or are installing a Nissan Leaf charging stations. Everyone has their own gigabit dark fiber to their jobs nearby. You telling me, we need welfare from Obama. I think not.

Not Proven wrote:

I'm against the $700B welfare gift for those above the 250K mark, which I am as well. We don't need welfare since we have so much. My neighborhood has private schools for whites who don't want blacks and Mexicans around. Everyone drives a Prius, Honda, Subaru. One dozen of my neighbors have or are installing a Nissan Leaf charging stations. Everyone has their own gigabit dark fiber to their jobs nearby. You telling me, we need welfare from Obama. I think not.

The term welfare is loaded and inaccurate. If the average per person expenditure from the income tax is 30K and a rich person tax bill is 150K, then asking him to not pay 170K is not welfare. Asking someone in the lower income to pay 15K would be. I am not saying they should pay 30K, I am just saying it would be much more accurate to call this welfare. As someone who doesn't make much, I am just thankful for the 150K.(Totally made up numbers)

Based on what you advocate, I would like to have dinner with you, you would want to pay most of the bill, probably give me $10 knowing I had to pay for gas to get there. I have a relative who actually believes family members that earn more should pay his bill because "they can afford it". At least you are on the other side saying I will pay it. Good for you, but others in your shoes may disagree.

It's welfare because that loss of $700B will be borrowed with interest. At some point it will be taxed to another generation of Americans. You seem like an honest fellow, but your debate about equity and equality is a bit of a red herring for what the current tax rates mean to fiscal policy over the next ten years. If the idea was to extend the rates and cut an equivalent amount of spending from the budget, that would be a different ball of wax. Nobody seems to be arguing this. That is the point being made by the OP.

All of the rates should be allowed to expire, including cap. gains and qualified dividends. Equality and fiscal sanity.

breakeven wrote:

It's welfare because that loss of $700B will be borrowed with interest. At some point it will be taxed to another generation of Americans. You seem like an honest fellow, but your debate about equity and equality is a bit of a red herring for what the current tax rates mean to fiscal policy over the next ten years. If the idea was to extend the rates and cut an equivalent amount of spending from the budget, that would be a different ball of wax. Nobody seems to be arguing this. That is the point being made by the OP.

All of the rates should be allowed to expire, including cap. gains and qualified dividends. Equality and fiscal sanity.

I think of how we should divide the tax bill is different from the issue of deficit spending. It is not the rich persons fault that we are spending so much, and they are paying enough such that they are not contributing to the deficit. In the dinner analogy it is very easy to order steak and expensive wine if someone else is paying, especially if the richer relative can't say no. If I were paying for dinner myself I would not order wine, probably get chicken. Someone else paying always increases spending. I really believe asking the rich to pay for our problems is the problem, because it halt the conversation on fiscal responsibly.

I have read that our national tax as a percentage of GNP is about the same as it has been. I believe the issue is how much we spend. I think the deficit needs to be dealt with, but think we need to get out of our depression first. At that point the deficit commissions would be a good place to start the real debate. I actually think we should have had a war tax. We should have all made sacrifices, especially when others are risking their lives.

I am not so concerned about the rich, I just really believe that we would be better off with lower rates, lower deductions and lower spending. Very important in the very near future is the deficit. If we are taxing at the same rate, with a standard deduction, the rich would still pay much more than others. It will be fair to all. We can figure out what our GNP will be and use that to tax ourselves to a balanced budget.

So let's look at the fools resume:

1. No executive experience;

2. No leadership experience;

3. No business experience as a employer or employee;

4. No foreign policy experience;

5. No military experience;

6. No economics training;

7. No legislative accomplishments as a state or US Senator;

8. wrote 2 books about himself

At some point, it is time to accept reality. Obama's job-creation policies have FAILED!

And that does not even mention the $3.2 trillion increase in the National Debt that has accrued in just 22 months under Obama.

The $700B Welfare for over $250K proposal by the GOP & Tea Party is political suicide. We don't need it because we already pay at the $30K income tax rate rate after loopholes and decductions. I expense my hobbies, vacation, travel to my phony S Corp. I have retirements, trust funds, real estate, income property, a cash based retail shop, etc., to hide money. I have Tax Free Munis to hide income. I forward income to better years to dodge taxes. I do those things and I pay on average 10% for st and fed income tax even tho I gross 7 figures. Everyone who is rich does that. Obama does it. Boehner does it. I do it. So why do yiou think we need a welfare check from the Feds in these dire economic times ?

This idea that anybody would think that allowing people to keep the money they make is welfare is truly frightening. I assume most of those people are just trolling, but you never know here on Letsrun.

Of course some of those wealthy people make their money on the backs of corporate welfare given to defense contractors, bankers, etc. That is welfare that should be ended.

I know you are trolling on this, but I think you are actually highlighting the problem with your true beliefs. The belief that the rich all have these tax shelters all have cash businesses. This is not true. The ATM kicks in if there are excessive write-offs, many are not allowed. It is a flat tax system, but there is a high deductible which is phased out for higher incomes, meaning it is progressive. As fare as illegal actives and tax fraud, that is done at every level, so by your logic we should also raise taxes on the lower income as well, and especially find people who are completely in the underground economy.

The tax system is very progressive as is, the write-offs are exaggerated and the phase out of deductions and credits that most of us get are ignored. Also ignored is the earned income credit which means many get a rebate of thousands of dollars beyond what they have paid into the system. A negative tax is REALLY welfare.

The upper income get breaks I would like to see ended, I do not know the scope, but I am betting it is not as far reaching as many suggest. It is just a mantra, the rich get all the breaks. The truth is some of these breaks were by design to encourage certain behavior. We may benefit directly on these, such as charitable gifts. A real case could be made to not have these deductible, but the truth is much more nuanced than these blanket statements of the rich being greedy and the poor being their victims.

Certainly youv'e never worked a day in your life nor served in the US military. Your ideals don't matter at all to the issue at hand. The GOP and Tea Party are lying when gthey say we rich fold need the $700B welfare program extended. People with hefty incomes actually pay less than the lower incomes because the IRS doesn't audit us. Here the kids at public schools can use weed, meth, heroin because the police chief is elected and ignores the crimes to get votes. Yet 10 miles down the road black men are shot in the back and beaten by police.

Not Proven wrote:

Certainly youv'e never worked a day in your life nor served in the US military. Your ideals don't matter at all to the issue at hand. The GOP and Tea Party are lying when gthey say we rich fold need the $700B welfare program extended. People with hefty incomes actually pay less than the lower incomes because the IRS doesn't audit us. Here the kids at public schools can use weed, meth, heroin because the police chief is elected and ignores the crimes to get votes. Yet 10 miles down the road black men are shot in the back and beaten by police.

Well, I am thinking that the black people should vote and elect a chief that allows them to do drugs. Then he can go after those rich white gangs. Problems solved!

Maybe the black folks should that. It would be better to see their schools equally funded as here or for segregation to end. The public schools are so bad, I sent my kids to JC when they turned 15yo. They still went to the public HS FB & B-Ball games and dances. JC is REAL college. I didn't want their minds ruined by the local Catholic parochial schools.

But going back to the original issue, we rich folks don't need the $700B FED welfare. The news said today, we're getting it since Obama compromised to get UE extended. It's a shame that the GOP/TP is now holding the US Congress hostage. Rep Boehner is a wimp who pussed out at Great Lakes boot camp.

Call it what you want but it is irresponsible to spent more than you take in. If the rich don't want to pay the higher taxes, there are a lot of countries they could move to. In most of the ones with lower taxes, it is very hard to build a business.Notice how none of the repulicans ever list the 800 billion or so cuts that would be need to balance the budget? Heck none of them will even list out 100 billion. Why? Because everyone has pork that they love from deductions for state taxes, mortgages and tax breaks for real estate, farmer welfare, college welfare, defense contracts that bring jobs to their state, and so on. No one like all of it but the piece they get is tastey.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

This idea that anybody would think that allowing people to keep the money they make is welfare is truly frightening. I assume most of those people are just trolling, but you never know here on Letsrun.

Of course some of those wealthy people make their money on the backs of corporate welfare given to defense contractors, bankers, etc. That is welfare that should be ended.

From what I've seen and heard here, we are going to get an extra heaping of double dip recession.I had wanted an argument about morality which is about choices. What kind of country do we want to be.The majority of arguments have been about greed, balancing a budget or the hypocrisy (the latter is the most interesting to me).It seems clear that as the rich avoid sacrificing, and the poor are unable to sacrifice much more, that the desire for larger entitlement programs for the wealthy, and for war, will ultimately undermine appropriate entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.It is sad our soon to be elderly are going to be hosed and the younger generation in the States are going to see a total economic implosion. It may be avoidable if Obama grows some cajones and invests in our human capital and infrastructure to make us competitive with the world by retraining our workforce and restructuring our physical capital base (i.e., infrastructure).I think all this nitpicking about balancing the budget or accusing 99ers of not wanting to get a job and so on misses the point that the greater issue is our moral core. We must not simply want a society of extra-haves and those who have just-enough. We must equalize our disparity and coordinate our action as a nation to save all our hides. No conservative/Republican has yet cited a factually based argument that economically, or morally, justifies holding up UE benefits, or that confronts directly the hypocrisy of Republican tax cut aims.100th post on this threadgood job guys!