We make 250,000/year. I'm not a f***ing billionaire

I guess you are right, I conflated structural and cyclical deficit. Can you explain to me why that is a bad thing? I bet you cannot.If the government doesn't get enough revenue to cover its spending, it has to cover the difference with credit. Whether the deficit is cyclical or structural doesn't affect the obligation to borrow to cover current spending.Sorted.

GenericID wrote:

You are conflating structural and cyclical deficit - sort those two out and we'll talk.

Jeff Wigand wrote:

Why is it so hard for you to understand what I am saying?

What pisses me off is when someone claims that it's tough to get by on a quarter of a million dollars per year before taxes. You understand that the vast majority of everyone else somehow manages to raise a family and care for a family on a fraction of the income. Because if it's a struggle on $250,000 per year (or $140,000 net), how on god's green earth does everyone else take care of their parents, have children that go to college, put food on the table, etc.?

I appreciate your earnestness Jeff, but don't take a word he tells you at face value. It is all a BS sob story troll attempt to get people feel bad for the wealthy. The right wing have been doing this forever: fudge the facts, make shit up, and hope people buy it. Lots of people do, but he's full of it. More proof to follow.

(but you are correct, even if he WAS telling the truth, and his #'s were true, it would still be pretty sad if he couldn't survive more easily off of the $ he makes. But he's making all his #'s up to try and get some sympathy for the rich).

Like i said you have a spending problem. A lot of the stuff you are complaining about is your CHOICE not a necessity at all.

Good on you if you want to take care of an aging parent or send your kids to college. Its your money do with it as you please.

But don't complain that you don't have enough money after you CHOOSE to spend it on those other things.

The vast majority of America makes do with WAY LESS than you do.

So fix your spending problem and you will be fine. Forget the fact that Obama is not going to tax any of the money that you make below 250k at the higher limit. Will just ignore that lie of yours.

Samolea wrote:

. Your federal income overall rate, if in fact you are making $250k, is probably around 26%.

The facts show quite clearly that you are a liar.

DING, DING, DING...WE HAVE A WINNER!

I punched in some basic #'s for this guy, adding his and his wife's salary to 250k (gave him 5 kids, since he sounded burdened by his kids). They plugged in some standard deductions, and what do we find?

We find that even with ALL of the Bush tax cuts expiring (back to Clinton levels), the guy's TOTAL effective federal tax is 27%.

Under the republicans proposal, it goes to 26%.

*Under Obama's proposal of letting tax cuts expire for high earners (but continuing tax cuts for middle class)? IT GOES DOWN TO 25% , saving him about 4k in taxes *

(due to continuation of Obama stimulus bill TAX CUTS)

And yet this right wing clown troll is complaining that Obama the socialist is sticking it to people like him???

Sorry "Fed Up," know what's really up? Your little game, as in the "jig is up". Time to wave the white flag of troll surrender.

Tyrannosaurus Rexing wrote:

*Under Obama's proposal of letting tax cuts expire for high earners (but continuing tax cuts for middle class)? IT GOES DOWN TO 25% , saving him about 4k in taxes *

(due to continuation of Obama stimulus bill TAX CUTS)

http://interactive.taxfoundation.org/taxcalc/#calculator

And yet this right wing clown troll is complaining that Obama the socialist is sticking it to people like him???

Sorry "Fed Up," know what's really up? Your little game, as in the "jig is up". Time to wave the white flag of troll surrender.

And this concludes another edition of LetsRun Right Wing Troll Theater. This one has been epic, so let's all give the thread starter a 10/10.

(Now, I am not hating on anyone responding, because even troll threads bring up topics and side topics worthy of discussion, but this entire thread was based on the faulty premise that Obama is going to raise taxes on a family making $250,000 a year. He isn't.

a) as everyone knows, he has said that there will be tax increase ABOVE THAT AMOUNT OF INCOME. But all the trolls on here picked exactly that amount.

b) the increase only hits the income they make above that amount, so if it is not much above that amount, only a little bit gets hit with the higher tax rate

c) part of Obama's plan is to continue payroll tax cut which was PART OF HIS HATED STIMULUS BILL. This actually ends up lowering the effective federal tax rate of those making 250,000 a year, or even higher (up to a point, probably 400k or so) compared to the republican plan of extending all bush tax cuts but not extending payroll tax cut

THE END.

Here's how my actual paycheck breaks down.

BTW, I'm 32 and live in Chicago. I do fine but living in a city definitely impacts one's disposable income. I previously lived in Arizona, made less, but saved more.

Salary: ~$97k

Take Home: I see ~59% of my gross pay; On taxable income, I pay 29.9% in taxes for Fed, State, Medicare, Social Security

Further down you'll see two % columns. The first is the % of gross, the second is the % of taxable income.

Gross Pay:

$3,730.34

401k Contribution

$447.64 12.00% (I know this is option but I want to retire someday and not be broke)

Health

$68.78 1.84%

Dental

$6.44 0.17%

Vision

$3.90 0.10%

Total Pre-Tax Deductions

$526.76 14.12%

Total Pre-Tax Pay

$3,203.58 85.88%

LT Disability Insurance

$32.99 0.88% 1.0%

Life Insurance

$7.90 0.21% 0.2%

Total Post-Tax Deductions

$40.89 1.10% 1.3%

Federal Tax

590.99 15.84% 18.4%

Social Security

53.07 1.42% 1.7%

Medicare

153.7 4.12% 4.8%

Illinois State Tax

160.18 4.29% 5.0%

Total Taxes

957.94 25.68% 29.9%

Net Pay

$2,204.75 59.10%

Yes, your combined federal and state tax rate is 25%. Sounds right.

(But the OP and Fed Up pay FIFTY % or more of their income in taxes!! Can you believe it?!?! I can, because fox news says this is true)

Yeah, some people look at Medicare and SS as tax as well because they don't think they will ever actually see the benefit of either...from that perspective, my "tax" is ~30% of taxable incomeWhich brings me to my gripe...I worry about job security b/c of the field I'm in, so I've put off buying a house or having kids. Therefore, my only tax deduction is my 401k contribution. Why the hell should people get tax breaks for having kids or buying a house??? Not having kids avoids using future resources...they should be giving tax credits to people who don't have kids if they want to save on pollution, global warming, using natural resources ect...

Tyrannosaurus Rexing wrote:

Yes, your combined federal and state tax rate is 25%. Sounds right.

(But the OP and Fed Up pay FIFTY % or more of their income in taxes!! Can you believe it?!?! I can, because fox news says this is true)

Another dupe for Obama wrote:

To the OP-Finanacially i am in the same boat as you. My wife and i between the 2 of us make more than 250000. Thats more than most of the people in the world. Like it or not, we're in the top 1-2% of wage earners in the world.

Oh, you want to talk world now? Then we'd better be taxing the crap out of our Americans living in poverty because they aren't living in poverty in terms of the WHOLE world. And if you like paying taxes, sure, go do your thing. You can give more to the government than what's required if you want. But, some people would rather give it to non-profits that they feel can provide a bigger service for ever $ they make than the government. Yeah, there are some things the government can do more effectively than a non-profit could ever do. But then there are some things they can't.

The left WANT people to be poorer.

The don't actually want to use tax revenue to improve life for the lower classes. People like Jeff Wingard want EVERYONE to have less.

The modern left is an anti-capitalist movement whose goal is to destroy wealth and living standards.

Yes, that's exactly what the left wants. Good job, idiot!

Did I get trolled?

Samolea wrote:

Your entire income is not taxed at the highest rate. In fact, only income above $388,350 is taxed at the highest rate. I am pretty sure that $250k is less than $388,350. Your federal income overall rate, if in fact you are making $250k, is probably around 26%.

What state do you live in that has a 9.3% income tax rate? I looked in to it and the answer is none, on $250k. You need to be making a lot more than that and then your income tax rate might approach 9.3% in Hawaii, Cali, Oregon,or Rhode Island.

The facts show quite clearly that you are a liar.

California state taxes are 9.3% after the first $47K or so. I know because I pay it.

Samolea wrote:

At $250k per year...is no more than 26% federal tax and likely around 5% state.

There is zero chance that your claim of paying $111k in income taxes on $250k income (a 44% rate) is true

in 2012, someone married but filing separtely gets into the 35% tax bracket at $194,176 and above.

it's possible that person is in this situation.

FedUp wrote:

No one here seems to understand that $250,000 AFTER....I'll repeat that....AFTER taxes, which amount to about 44% or more depending upon where you live, is barely enough to keep kids in college and support elderly parents.

wait a second, i think you're misunderstanding how much FedUp is claiming to earn.

he said he has $250,000 or more leftover after paying his taxes.

what about the pioneers of america who want to take risks and expand?

if all high-earners' salaries were scaled back so that they received only the basic amounts for subsistence, then there would be no surplus.

a surplus is necessary to drive innovation.

You know one thing the Democrats are not good at is naming their laws. President Obama is constantly saying how he will not consider a budget that doesn't raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. But when Ronald Reagan was president, he called his tax hike the "Deficit Reduction Act of 1984". Here is another way Republicans use language to their advantage from Senator Marco Rubio: “I’ve yet to meet a job creator who’s told me they’re looking for higher taxes.”

Why are all rich people called "job creators"? They don't create jobs, the market does and if there isn't a demand the they won't produce a supply. If people (aka middle class who make up the majority of the population) don't have money they won't buy products and the job creators won't create jobs.

Henry Ford realized that if his workers had more money they would buy his cars and instituted a $5 work day. Those higher wages allowed him to sell more cars and make a lot more money in the end.

During the 1940-70s we had much higher tax rates and that paid for our highway system, a huge military which allowed us to protect our economic interests throughout the world, the GI bill which educated "The Greatest Generation" and social program to help countless millions out of poverty. I guess that was all created by "job creators."

My sister in law feels we should cut taxes so she can chose who she wants to give charity to and that the federal government is inefficient. She is a good person for wanting to give charity to social programs and I'm sure she is right about the inefficiency in government but not everyone would give as much as needed to help all the people that need it. And some causes are not as glamorous as others and would not receive the funding they need. And until the Federal government got involved, I don't recall many large scale road building projects even though all "job creators" rely on them to get their goods to market.

Not enough rich people (I'll use the Democrats term) will donate their wealth in a manner that will fix problems in our society. Sure they can donate a million here or there, but someone needs to organize BILLIONS to really make a difference. Rich people complain about the size of government and the proposed 2 1/2 percent tax increase as the downfall of capitalism, (some people even call President Obama communist and really don't understand what that means) but they certainly like to take advantage of the advantages of a society with our military, roads, educated work force and "poor people" who still have enough money to buy a TV and cell phone.

I'm sure she is right about the inefficiency in government

This is quite a pervasive meme, but I've never seen any really objective data to back it up. Perhaps you'd be willing to demonstrate this "inefficiency"?

I will concede that argument because I really don't know if that is true, but it really doesn't matter if government is the private sector is more efficient which many on the right say, because what they forget is that the private sector won't do many things that are good for society unless they are forced to because they will usually only do what is good for their pocketbook or their stock holders. Think about why most people donate money, its a write off and lowers their taxes. Sure its their choice to donate money, but would the if the paid less in taxes and didn't have an incentive? I know some like my sister in law would, but I don't think there would be enough people (or corporations) like her to do what is needed for society to function at the level it is right now.

No doubt there is waste, but I've also seen plenty of waste in the private sector. I believe the idea is that waste in government is both more pervasive, because funding isn't limited in the same way as it is in private industry, and that waste in government is more repugnant because the taxpayer doesn't get the choice in whether or not to contribute, whereas they're not made to purchase the services of a wasteful private company if they don't want to.

I'd be interested how the numbers stack up against the perception.