The people for whom John McCain once opposed tax cuts, but now says he wants to make them permanent.
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dithersPosted:
Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:59 pm
pax wrote:
The people for whom John McCain once opposed tax cuts, but now says he wants to make them permanent.
Let me rephrase that. If you were a lawmaker in DC and passing new measures for additional taxes to be levied, what are the income levels at which you would phase in those additional taxes?
I'm not trying to be cute. I'm being serious here. Please give income brackets and tax rates (as a percentage of income) that you believe to be fair for those brackets. It's too easy to blah-blah that whole can of worms about taxing the rich without ever being held to specifics. And I want to hear some specifics.
Pretty in Blonde
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PhantomPosted:
Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:06 pm
dithers wrote:
Let me rephrase that. If you were a lawmaker in DC and passing new measures for additional taxes to be levied, what are the income levels at which you would phase in those additional taxes?
I'm not trying to be cute. I'm being serious here. Please give income brackets and tax rates (as a percentage of income) that you believe to be fair for those brackets. It's too easy to blah-blah that whole can of worms about taxing the rich without ever being held to specifics. And I want to hear some specifics.
Rich people making a little over $31,000 can expect tax increases.
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yankee-in-francePosted:
Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:31 pm
justamom wrote:
I think MCCain would be most trusted to pull us out considering his background as a POW. Not to mention hes a republican and for some reason this time around the repubs put someone up front that anyone can stand behind. Hes a decent guy and almost an Independant. Sincce the repubs got us into it Id like to see them get us out of it.
Jam, my problem with Mc Cain is who will his running mate be? He is 70 or 71. He has had health problems in the past. If elected, would he not be the oldest man elected to the presidency?
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yankee-in-francePosted:
Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:33 pm
dithers wrote:
Let me rephrase that. If you were a lawmaker in DC and passing new measures for additional taxes to be levied, what are the income levels at which you would phase in those additional taxes?
I'm not trying to be cute. I'm being serious here. Please give income brackets and tax rates (as a percentage of income) that you believe to be fair for those brackets. It's too easy to blah-blah that whole can of worms about taxing the rich without ever being held to specifics. And I want to hear some specifics.
OK, Pax, you heard Dithers. Get your pen, paper, and calculator out and let's draft a plan. It will be on your desk by Monday, Dithers.
YIF
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yankee-in-francePosted:
Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:35 pm
I thought this thread was dead and I find you guys hanging out in here. It's late. I'll see you tomorrow.
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SchmertyPosted:
Wed Mar 19, 2008 5:16 pm
This is a great dialogue that's been started here. Please keep it alive. We need to support our troops. We need to bring our people home & give them the health care & psychological support that so many have been denied. So many inuries, so many suicides. Our troops deserve better. STOP THIS WAR!. If war is so great & patriotic ,why are so many homeless & hungry. Why did Cheney get so many deferments. ? Why did the cowardly GWBush hide? Why do we not have some say about bancrupting this country?
Support our country men! Support lives from being lost. The interest of the few...Rumsfeld, Cheney,...SHOULD NOT RULE!
Skipping along my own path.
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dithersPosted:
Wed Mar 19, 2008 5:49 pm
This data is a bit old but maybe you'll find it helpful when you get that old pencil out.
[quote]Only The Rich Pay Taxes
Top 50% of Wage Earners Pay 96.03% of Income Taxes
October 10, 2003
There is new data for 2001. The share of total income taxes paid by the top 1% fell to 33.89% from 37.42% in 2000. This is mainly because their income share (not just wages) fell from 20.81% to 17.53%. However, their average tax rate actually rose slightly from 27.45% to 27.50%.
*Data covers calendar year 2001, not fiscal year 2001 - and includes all income, not just wages, excluding Social Security
This proves that it was not the tax cut that caused revenues from the rich to fall, but the recession and the stock market crash. In other words, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. If you are going to benefit from the rich paying more taxes, due to progressivity, on the upside, you are going to lose more revenue from these people on the downside. This is a good argument for reducing progressivity.
Think of it this way: less than four dollars out of every $100 paid in income taxes in the United States is paid by someone in the bottom 50% of wage earners. Are the top half millionaires? Noooo, more like "thousandaires." The top 50% were those individuals or couples filing jointly who earned $26,000 and up in 1999. (The top 1% earned $293,000-plus.) Americans who want to are continuing to improve their lives - and those who don't want to, aren't. Here are the wage earners in each category and the percentages they pay:
Top 5% pay 53.25% of all income taxes (Down from 2000 figure: 56.47%). The top 10% pay 64.89% (Down from 2000 figure: 67.33%). The top 25% pay 82.9% (Down from 2000 figure: 84.01%). The top 50% pay 96.03% (Down from 2000 figure: 96.09%). The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.97% of all income taxes. The top 1% is paying more than ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom 50%!And who earns what? The top 1% earns 17.53 (2000: 20.81%) of all income. The top 5% earns 31.99 (2000: 35.30%). The top 10% earns 43.11% (2000: 46.01%); the top 25% earns 65.23% (2000: 67.15%), and the top 50% earns 86.19% (2000: 87.01%) of all the income.
The Rich Earned Their Dough, They Didn't Inherit It (Except Ted Kennedy)
The bottom 50% is paying a tiny bit of the taxes, so you can't give them much of a tax cut by definition. Yet these are the people to whom the Democrats claim to want to give tax cuts. Remember this the next time you hear the "tax cuts for the rich" business. Understand that the so-called rich are about the only ones paying taxes anymore.
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paxPosted:
Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:25 pm
dithers wrote:
Let me rephrase that. If you were a lawmaker in DC and passing new measures for additional taxes to be levied, what are the income levels at which you would phase in those additional taxes?
I'm not trying to be cute. I'm being serious here. Please give income brackets and tax rates (as a percentage of income) that you believe to be fair for those brackets. It's too easy to blah-blah that whole can of worms about taxing the rich without ever being held to specifics. And I want to hear some specifics.
I'm not trying to be cute either. The topic of this thread is Stop the War. So I ask again, sincerely:
How does McCain plan to end the war and reduce the deficit while making permanent tax cuts for the rich?
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paxPosted:
Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:34 pm
yankee-in-france wrote:
OK, Pax, you heard Dithers. Get your pen, paper, and calculator out and let's draft a plan. It will be on your desk by Monday, Dithers.
LOL. We aren't running for president, are we? Barack Obama has a pretty good plan to end the war, reduce the deficit, and let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. From what I understand, McCain wants to make those tax cuts permanent and continue the war indefinitely. The only way he can do that, in my opinion, is to either increase the deficit, drastically cut domestic spending, or both. But I'm all ears, especially as to how McCain plans to stop the war (the topic of this thread).
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paxPosted:
Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:36 pm
Schmerty wrote:
This is a great dialogue that's been started here. Please keep it alive. We need to support our troops. We need to bring our people home & give them the health care & psychological support that so many have been denied. So many inuries, so many suicides. Our troops deserve better. STOP THIS WAR!. If war is so great & patriotic ,why are so many homeless & hungry. Why did Cheney get so many deferments. ? Why did the cowardly GWBush hide? Why do we not have some say about bancrupting this country?
Support our country men! Support lives from being lost. The interest of the few...Rumsfeld, Cheney,...SHOULD NOT RULE!
I agree Schmerty. Support our troops, bring them home safely, and honor them when they return.
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paxPosted:
Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:49 pm
Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge
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resignedPosted:
Sat Mar 22, 2008 2:23 am
pax wrote:
Why are we in Iraq?
To win the hearts and minds of Iraqis so that someday they and the rest of the free world can watch people call in their votes to "Iraqian Idol"
Click your heels together...
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paxPosted:
Sat Mar 22, 2008 4:50 am
resigned wrote:
To win the hearts and minds of Iraqis so that someday they and the rest of the free world can watch people call in their votes to "Iraqian Idol"
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paxPosted:
Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:27 pm
How Did I Get Iraq Wrong?
By Andrew Sullivan
I think I committed four cardinal sins.
Historical Narcissism
I was distracted by the internal American debate to the occlusion of the reality of Iraq. For most of my adult lifetime, I had heard those on the left decry American military power, constantly warn of quagmires, excuse what I regarded as inexcusable tyrannies, and fail to grasp that the nature of certain regimes makes their removal a moral objective. As a child of the Cold War and a proud Reaganite and Thatcherite, I regarded 1989 as almost eternal proof of the notion that the walls of tyranny could fall if we had the will to bring them down and the gumption to use military power when we could. I had also been marinated in neoconservative thought for much of the 1990s and seen the moral power of Western intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo. All this primed me for an ideological battle that was, in retrospect, largely irrelevant to the much more complex post-Cold War realities we were about to confront.
When I heard the usual complaints from the left about how we had no right to intervene, how Bush was the real terrorist, how war was always wrong, my trained ears heard the same cries that I had heard in the 1980s. So, I saw the opposition to the war as another example of a faulty Vietnam Syndrome, associated it entirely with the far left—or boomer nostalgia—and was revolted by the anti-war marches I saw in Washington. I wasn't wrong about some of this. Some of those reflexes were at work (which is why I find Obama's far more pragmatic opposition so striking in retrospect). I became much too concerned with fighting that old internal ideological battle and failed to think freshly or realistically about what the consequences of intervention could be. I allowed myself to be distracted by an ideological battle when what was required was clear-eyed prudence.
Narrow Moralism
I recall very clearly one night before the war began. I made myself write down the reasons for and against the war and realized that if there were question marks on both sides (the one point in favor I did not put a question mark over was the existence of stockpiles of WMD!), the deciding factor for me in the end was that I could never be ashamed of removing someone as evil as Saddam from power. I became enamored of my own morality and the righteousness of this single moral act. And he was a monster, as we discovered. But what I failed to grasp is that war is also a monster, and unless one weighs all the possibly evil consequences of an abstractly moral act, one hasn't really engaged in a truly serious moral argument. I saw war's unknowable consequences far too glibly.
Unconservatism
I heard and read about ancient Sunni and Shiite divisions, knew of the awful time the British had in running Iraq, but I had never properly absorbed the lesson. I bought the argument put forward by many neoconservatives that Iraq was one of the more secular and modern of Arab societies; that these divisions were not so deep; that all those pictures of men in suits and mustaches and women in Western clothing were the deeper truth about this rare, modern Arab society. I believed that it could, if we worked at it and threw enough money at it, be a model for the rest of the Arab Muslim world. I should add that I don't believe these ancient divides were necessarily as deep as they subsequently became in the unnecessary chaos that the Rumsfeld invasion unleashed. But I greatly underestimated them—and as someone who liked to think of myself as a conservative, I pathetically failed to appreciate how those divides never truly go away and certainly cannot be abolished by a Western magic wand. In that sense, I was not conservative enough. I let my hope—the hope that had been vindicated by the fall of the Soviet Union—get the better of my skepticism. There are times when that is a good thing. The Iraq war wasn't one of them.
Misreading Bush
Yes, the incompetence and arrogance were beyond anything I imagined. In 2000, my support for Bush was not deep. I thought he was an OK, unifying, moderate Republican who would be fine for a time of peace and prosperity. I was concerned—ha!—that Gore would spend too much. I was reassured by the experience and intelligence and pedigree of Cheney and Rumsfeld and Powell. Two of them had already fought and won a war in the Gulf. The bitter election battle hardened my loyalty. And once 9/11 happened, my support intensified as I hoped for the best. Bush's early speeches were magnificent. The Afghanistan invasion was defter than I expected. I got lulled. I wanted him to succeed—too much, in retrospect.
But my biggest misreading was not about competence. Wars are often marked by incompetence. It was a fatal misjudgment of Bush's sense of morality. I had no idea he was so complacent—even glib—about the evil that good intentions can enable. I truly did not believe that Bush would use 9/11 to tear up the Geneva Conventions. When I first heard of abuses at Gitmo, I dismissed them as enemy propaganda. I certainly never believed that a conservative would embrace torture as the central thrust of an anti-terror strategy and lie about it, and scapegoat underlings for it, and give us the indelible stain of Bagram and Camp Cropper and Abu Ghraib and all the other secret torture and interrogation sites that Bush and Cheney created and oversaw. I certainly never believed that a war I supported for the sake of freedom would actually use as its central weapon the deepest antithesis of freedom—the destruction of human autonomy and dignity and will that is torture. To distort this by shredding the English language, by engaging in newspeak that I had long associated with totalitarian regimes, was a further insult. And for me, it was yet another epiphany about what American conservatism had come to mean.
I know our enemy is much worse. I have never doubted that. I still have no qualms whatever in waging war to defeat it. But I never believed that America would do what America has done. Never. My misjudgment at the deepest moral level of what Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld were capable of—a misjudgment that violated the moral core of the enterprise—was my worst mistake. What the war has done to what is left of Iraq—the lives lost, the families destroyed, the bodies tortured, the civilization trashed—was bad enough. But what was done to America—and the meaning of America—was unforgivable. And for that I will not and should not forgive myself.
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yankee-in-francePosted:
Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:25 am
Pax, thanks for this tremendous article -- a very worthy read.
YIF
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paxPosted:
Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:25 pm
The cost of the war in Iraq varies from $500 billion to $3 trillion depending on the source. What's the return on investment? What are possible strategies for ending the war in the most effective manner?
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dithersPosted:
Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:31 pm
pax wrote:
The cost of the war in Iraq varies from $500 billion to $3 trillion depending on the source. What's the return on investment? What are possible strategies for ending the war in the most effective manner?
The only possible strategy you should consider for ending the war is victory.
What is the return on investment? I didn't know it was an investment. But never mind that argument. Since it's impossible to know what might have transpired had Saddam remained in power that's a question that's impossible to answer anyway.
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Need2KnowPosted:
Tue Apr 08, 2008 2:20 pm
In the wake of all of the debate, a true, brave, selfless soldier and hero:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- When a grenade bounced off his chest and fell to the floor near his fellow troops, Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor acted out of instinct.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor, in an undated photo from the Navy, died in Iraq in September 2006.
His actions didn't stem from a lack of training. His instant reaction was to protect his comrades.
The Navy says he committed a selfless act -- jumping on the grenade and taking the full force of the blast.
On Tuesday, President Bush will present Monsoor's parents with a posthumous Medal of Honor for their son at a White House ceremony. Watch Monsoor's sister share her memories »
Monsoor was one of the U.S. military's most highly trained combatants, a Navy SEAL. He's the first SEAL to receive the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq.
On September 29, 2006, Monsoor was part of a major clearing and isolating operation to root out enemy fighters holding parts of Ramadi, the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.
Monsoor was in a sniper position on a rooftop along with two other SEALs when a grenade flew into his location from out of nowhere. It bounced off his chest and landed in an area where it likely would have killed or seriously wounded all three of them.
Don't Miss
U.S. Navy: Tribute and biography of Monsoor
Monsoor was in a position to escape before the explosion but instead leapt on the grenade.
The blast did not kill him right away -- he hung on for 30 minutes. His two comrades also were wounded but survived the shrapnel that ripped through their bodies.
Until this month, when the White House announced Monsoor would receive the Medal of Honor posthumously, few people knew of his story.
Born in 1981 in Long Beach, California, Monsoor excelled as a high school athlete. He joined the Navy before the September 11, 2001, attacks.
In 2004, Monsoor graduated from the basic SEAL training course as one of the top members of his class. By March 2005, he had completed his training and was assigned to SEAL Team 3, Delta Platoon.
In April 2006, that unit deployed to Iraq's troubled and violent western provincial capital of Ramadi. Monsoor would not return home alive.
His five-month stay in Ramadi was marked by constant attacks. As a heavy machine gunner, Monsoor had to stay behind the point man on foot patrols and protect the unit from attacks.
Delta Platoon was involved in attacks on 75 percent of its missions in a highly contested part of Ramadi called the Ma'laab district, according to the Navy.
On a patrol less than a month after arriving in Iraq, Monsoor showed some of his selfless instinct when gunfire hit a fellow SEAL in the leg.
Monsoor "ran out into the street with another SEAL, shot cover fire and dragged his comrade to safety while enemy bullets kicked up the concrete at their feet," according to Navy documents.
He received the Silver Star, the third highest award for valor in combat.
His unit continued to endure the constant barrage of attacks and some 35 firefights with insurgent forces over the scorching Iraqi summer.
Monsoor also was saddled with carrying heavy radio equipment on his back as the "SEAL communicator" who called in tank and other support during firefights.
He received the Bronze Star for his work as an adviser for Iraqi troops.
"His leadership, guidance and decisive actions during 11 different combat operations saved the lives of his teammates, other [U.S.-led] coalition forces and Iraqi army soldiers," according to Navy documents.
But it was his instinct on his last operation on that Ramadi roof that solidified Monsoor's standing as a hero.
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paxPosted:
Sun Apr 13, 2008 8:44 am
Only World War II was costlier than Iraq war
Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
It was supposed to be a quick war and a cheap one. Five years later, 160,000 U.S. troops are still in Iraq. And the costs keep piling up - $12 billion every month - putting a strain on an already faltering economy. The United States has poured more than $500 billion into Iraq, mostly for military operations. But that figure is just a small piece of the much larger bill that taxpayers will pay in the future. Because the money for the war is being borrowed, interest payments could add another $615 billion. A heavily depleted military will have to be rebuilt at a cost of $280 billion. Disability benefits and health care for Iraq war veterans, many of them severely injured, could add another half-trillion dollars over their lifetime. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University public finance Professor Laura Bilmes have included those calculations in a new study of the war's long-term costs. Their estimate of the war's price tag: $3 trillion. "We are a rich country, and we can, in some sense, afford it. It's not going to bankrupt us," said Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor, who published the findings in a new book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War." But Stiglitz said the war has contributed to a weakening economy - partly by feeding the instability that has sent oil prices to record highs - and has saddled the country with debts that will make it harder to respond to a recession, fix Social Security or meet other future needs. "The best way to think about it is: What could we have done with $3 trillion?" he said. "What is the best way to spend the money, either for security or for our national needs in the long run? The stronger the American economy, the more prepared we are to meet any threat. If we weaken the American economy, we are less prepared."....http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/17/MNBVVL9GK.DTL
The Petraeus-Crocker Show Gets the Hook
By FRANK RICH
Published: April 13, 2008
....General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker define victory as “sustainable security” in Iraq. But both Colin Powell and Gen. Richard Cody, the Army’s vice chief of staff, said last week that current troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan are unsustainable and are damaging America’s readiness to meet other security threats. And that’s not all that’s unsustainable. An ailing economy can’t keep floating the war’s $3-billion-a-week cost. A Republican president intent on staying the Bush course will find his vetoes unsustainable after the Democrats increase their majorities in Congress in November. No war can be fought indefinitely if the public has irrevocably turned against it.
Mr. McCain says Americans want “victory,” whatever that means today, and yes, they would if it could be won on the terms promised by Mr. Bush five years ago — fast, and with minimal sacrifice. It’s way too late to ask for years of stepped-up sacrifice now in the cause of a highly debatable definition of “national interests.” This war has lasted so long that Americans have had the time to pass through all five stages of grief over its implosion. Though dead-enders like Mr. McCain may have only gone from denial to anger to bargaining, most others have moved on to depression and acceptance. Unable to even look at the fiasco anymore, the nation is now just waiting for someone to administer the last rites. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/opinion/13rich.html?hp
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~kaRNPosted:
Sat May 17, 2008 7:38 pm
pax wrote:
Why are we in Iraq?
To rid the world of Weapons of Mass Destruction that never existed. And to secure oil. Do I win??
Don't answer pax. We all lose actually.
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SavannahStarPosted:
Sat May 17, 2008 7:39 pm
~kaRN wrote:
To rid the world of Weapons of Mass Destruction that never existed. And to secure oil. Do I win??
Don't answer pax. We all lose actually.
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~kaRNPosted:
Sun May 18, 2008 12:07 am
SavannahStar wrote:
You look lovely in your hammock Savannah!!
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paxPosted:
Tue May 20, 2008 3:17 am
Chris Mathews:
I argue politics for a living. In the years after 9/11 there emerged a vulnerability in this country, exploited by some, to any criticism of government policy. Dissent made people nervous, even suspicious. This jumpiness inspired a mob-like attack on anyone who said anything that contains even a jolt of novelty, a spark of evidence that a mind somewhere might be getting out of line. Every week, it seemed, there was someone - Bill Maher, the Dixie Chicks - who had said something you’re not supposed to say,
How about this for a thought: arguing politics, arguing about the politics of foreign policy, especially, and, yes, whether the decision was right to invade and occupy Iraq was a smart move or not, whether it’s right to keep our forces there now, whether the whole “mindset” of this war is good for our country, is a matter of legitimate debate. Arguing what’s good for this country isn’t unpatriotic, speaking up and caring about what we’re doing in the world can be the very essence of patriotism. Trying to silence criticism is the very opposite of democracy.
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