When you decide to enter politics you life becomes public—even aspects you wouldn’t like to be. That’s the way it is and you have to deal with it and suffer the consequences of your mistakes.

Wrong. That’s the way it is with attack politics, but that’s not the way it has to be. If we want good people to enter politics (I’m NOT saying Brandon is good people), we need to keep their private lives private.

Oh, and, the alderman’s BUSINESS is not his PRIVATE life….boycott the ass

OMFG are you kidding me?!?!?! A “political response”??? LOL!!! You fucking idiots are in a crappy student government battling with Alders that are only Alders because they can’t find other jobs!! Get a clue, folks!

I love how Brandon takes every political opportunity to criticize drinking, partying etc. on the part of UW students, but then when it comes to his private life, then he just works to exploit our love of alcohol (laundry 101), and this letter even panders to that idea (“Have a beer at Laundry 101 and you'll certainly agree.”) when it comes to economic gain on his part. I think there’s a double standard here and no, these issues should not be viewed in separate lights. I advocate the boycott of Laundry 101.

Yes, Austin, alders are entitled to have private lives. But when they resort to what you admit was a cheap political stunt, they must be expected to face the consequences. When one’s income is dependent upon the very students that Zach Brandon is trying to exploit for cheap political gain, it is only fitting that the students impose the strongest sanctions they are able — in other words, a boycott. Perhaps if Mr. Brandon feels the sting from his irresponsible and idiotic actions, he will think twice before attempting similar stunts in the future.

Of course it’s a valid political statement to boycott the dude. There is certainly nothing Austin King or anyone else can do to stop it. Personally, I find this form of protest much less offensive than standing in the middle of University Avenue to make a point.

laundry 101 is stupid anyway.. even so, we should boycott the place because it is political.. if we wanted to get personal we’d throw a cream pie in his face before a city council meeting or something

I’m tired of alder Brandon and his media whore stunts (tax cap or ass hat?). Whenever alder Brandon does one of his stunts the media always refers to him as “Laundry 101 owner Zach Brandon” at some point so he certainly gets some free publicity for his business when he’s doing his alder “work”. I’m just fed up and I won’t be bringing my business to Laundry 101 anymore.

Hey Austin, suffering from short term memory loss? I seem to remember a quote of yours from only two days ago… "If there is a picket outside of Laundry 101, I'm not going to be surprised," King added (Badger Herald, 4/27/05).

I’m not quite sure, but to me that sounds like a veiled threat to boycott Laundry 101. In fact, it seems almost Tom Delay-esque. Maybe you were misquoted, as it is not an incredibly uncommon thing for the Herald to do. Or, maybe you just opened your mouth without thinking about the potential political firestorm you were starting.

Thankfully, Mike Verveer is still sensible enough to try and make sure that cooler heads prevail out of this entire situation. I don’t think people on this campus appreciate everything Verveer does for the student population. Hell, without Verveer, I doubt Mifflin would have been moved to the 30th. If it had stayed on the 7th, there would have likely been some violence on one of the two weekends which Mayor Dave would have blamed on students instead of his office’s incompetence. Thanks to Verveer’s hard work, Mifflin will hopefully go off without a hitch again… with or without a Laundry 101 boycott.

I am still waiting for the conservatives who complain about welfare, the TAA’s healthcare, and tax abuse to step up and offer to pay their share of the police detail.

Stop sucking off the public teat you conservatives! Pay your way! Stop mooching off the system!

I can’t wait to see what kind of contorted logic the first conservative reply has to this post.

If you go to Mifflin and don’t offer to pay then you are all hypocrites conservatrolls.

“Hey Austin, suffering from short term memory loss? I seem to remember a quote of yours from only two days ago… "If there is a picket outside of Laundry 101, I'm not going to be surprised," King added (Badger Herald, 4/27/05).”

To his credit, I spoke with Austin last night and he admitted that that quote sounded a lot different than what he meant to convey. He wanted to say that he wouldn’t be surprised if students decided to picket … NOT that he intended to or would endorse it.

“Hey Austin, suffering from short term memory loss?”

“To his credit…”

Look at the guy, he looks like a cheech & chong and michael moore hybrid. His short term memory is as shot as his chance of not dying of a heart attack.

I AM STILL WAITING FOR A CONSERVATIVE TO OFFER TO PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE AND STOP STEALING “MY TAX DOLLARS”WITH THEIR RECKELSS PARTYING!

You want a conservative to respond, well you got one buddy. Stealing your tax dollars. Are you that big of hippie you can’t see the smoke from you bong that is constantly hovering around your head? And conservatives? Try a large majority of the UW student population.

Let’s to a little excercise. Try to keep up. Do students eat at local restaurants pumping thousands into the community? Check. Do students visit local establishments and have a few drinks? Double check. Do students live in dilapidated apartments and pay their landlords thousands monthly? Triple, CHECK!

My point, these conservative reckless partiers that you so callously rip apart, are the same ones pumping MILLIONS upon MILLIONS into this community ANNUALLY.

Oh and on a side note, it is us conservatives that have this thing called a JOB that we pay taxes on that allow you to mooch off the system. Try getting one.

That is the stupidest post I’ve ever seen. The conservative majority (?) are the only ones with jobs that pump money into the local economy. You asked for a conservative and got a moron, close enough.

I’d rather pay taxes for public assistance than for cops to babysit spoiled drunk rich kids.

I suppose asking someone to read would be too big of a strech. UW students as a whole are repsonsible for large amounts of economic inflow to Madison. So to the poster calling out conservatives, little off buddy. It is the student population as a whole that contributes a sizeable piece to the economic pie in Madison.

Oh and reading.. Top to bottom, left to right. EVERY word. Getting a headache yet?

I think the all-caps guy insinuated that liberals are against reckless partying. What a dork.

I think the original point is that conservatives are against any public spending unless it directly benefits them (as opposed to the indirect benefits we all enjoy from education, safety and public assistance spending). I really do think that conservatives are short-sighted and selfish. Disagree with me if you’d like but I think the original poster was trying to say the same thing.

What does student spending have to do with political leanings? Liberals and conservatives both spend money on the local economy.

Why shouldn’t they be selfish? Middle class conservatives put a ton of tax money into this economy, and pull only a fraction back in services and everything else that lower class citizens use. Shouldn’t they feel the right to demand more for their money?

I think what these people overlook is the indirect benefits their taxes give them. True, they don’t get a check every month, but compare the other services they receive. Those who receive direct goverment payments usually live in areas that see limited or no police and fire protection, infrastructure maintenance or services like snow plowing or crossing guards. Think about the things you take for granted as a privileged American before you cry too hard over FDIC or pa.

I disagree with the authors, as much as I like them. They say Zach Brandon’s business is not part of the political, but it was Zach Brandon who first politicized his business. Check out http://www.runzachrun.com/index.php?s0=is&s1=fv&gffxid=8

“Why I want to be your alder…

There are two voices that are missing or underrepresented on the Madison Common Council. The first is that of the young family. I have three, young children and I want to insure that what's best for them and their generation is represented. The other is the voice of small business. I have made it my charge to slow Madison's spending and to promote economic development in Madison and the region.”

He actually is the one that politicizes his family AND his business, like breeding and owning a business are inherent credentials that would make him a better alder. Ain’t no one-way streets in politics, folks, and it was Brandon who opened his fat mouth first. Ergo, his business is fair game. And yes, if he cheated on his wife, that would be fair game, too.

“I think the original point is that conservatives are against any public spending unless it directly benefits them (as opposed to the indirect benefits we all enjoy from education, safety and public assistance spending). I really do think that conservatives are short-sighted and selfish. Disagree with me if you’d like but I think the original poster was trying to say the same thing.”

This is exactly what I meant. Conservatives complain about “their tax dollars” going to this thing and that thing, but when the spending benefits them they are more than willing to suck off the public teat and get angry that anyone would insinuate that they are greedy selfish and shortsighted, but they are.

My original point was that I don’t party at Mifflin and my taxes pay for the police, you don’t bike and taxes pay for my bike path and so on. So stop being hypocrites, because you are just showing yourself for the greedy hypocritical thugs that you are.

Taxes are our dues. We owe them to pay for public services and though we don’t use every service we can’t pick and choose which ones we want. Conservatives are really just whiners who want to shirk paying the money they owe to society for using our public services. They want everyone else to pay for them, but complain about having to pay for school lunch programs. It is really just pathetic and sad.

amen

Wait wait…conservatives don’t have a problem paying legit taxes…but me paying for John down the street to not work…that’s wrong. Sorry. Any way you put it, John doing nothing doesn’t mean I should give him money. Say it’s no compassion, I call it demanding work out of the people of this country. Slackers will fail, and we should not help them.

It’s amazing how liberals/progressives like to complain about being stereotyped yet they have no problem doing it themselves. FYI i am dem turned republican who makes less than $30,000 combined a year working for a non profit full time and for the handicap part time and i know plenty of people making less $50,000 who are conservatives, so stop insuniating that all republicans/conservatives are rich heartless citizens.

Another little FYI, I know someone who made $9,500 last year working part time(by choice) and got a tax refund(more like tax welfare) of $3,900, obviously alot more then that person paid in. That’s why it is tax welfare and not a tax refund. Now, it shouldnt matter what political party you associate with, you have to admit this is wrong! I have no problem paying taxes, all i ask is that the government make sure that the people accepting public assistance deserve it and are willing to use it to improve their situation.

Quit your bitching.

“Another little FYI, I know someone who made $9,500 last year working part time(by choice) and got a tax refund(more like tax welfare) of $3,900, obviously alot more then that person paid in. That’s why it is tax welfare and not a tax refund.”

The only way to get a refund that big off of such low income is if way too much money was withheld in the first place. In that case, your acquaintance is an idiot for not having the person in charge of payroll at his or her workplace adjust the amount withheld.

or if you have kids — welfare whores get huge refunds

So you won’t support someone who has lost their job, but paying for a bunch of college kids to drink is justified…how?

You are hypocrites.

If you don’t think taxes should go for paying for something that not everyone uses, then please list your name on here and I will divide the overtime police costs by the number of attendees and you can donate the money to a a charity if the police dept won’t take it.

If you won’t do that you are hypocrite. Plain and simple.

You complain about other people “not working” when you want to shirk the dues that you rightfully owe to society. Why don’t you want to pay your fair share conservatives? 50% of taxes go to the military. I don’t support our current military actions, killing innocent civilians, intentional or not, but I still pay.

And you selfish little pigs are unwilling to pay .00003% of your tax dollars for some poor kid to have a nutritious lunch or for a homeless guy to have a warm bed.

It’s really sad how greedy and selfish our country has become and how conservatism has taken hold like a sickness that justifies being selfish, unchristian, and greedy.

going back to me working for a non- profit, If it was for the generosity of rich people most non profits would not exist!!

I vote for fair taxes. also known as a flat tax rate, everyone who works pays the same percentage. Fair.

I mean if it wasnt for the generosity of the rich, most non profits would not exist.

Non-profit doesn’t mean that they don’t make money. It means that they do not make a “profit” in otherwords they don’t further concentrate wealth in the hands of the uber-rich investor class.

Non-profits have better benefits than regular companies because they can actually invest in their employees rather than having to hand over every penny possible to the uber-rich shareholders.

So your premise is that only wealthy people profit from the stock market?

Then you should love Bush’s social security plan, since it would give everyone a chance to profit from the stock market.

“I vote for fair taxes. also known as a flat tax rate, everyone who works pays the same percentage. Fair.”

Those aren’t fair taxes at all. Fair taxes ARE progressive because, and here comes the shock bus, people with higher incomes get more from the government than others.

Think of the military and law enforcement. We’re paying to defend ourselves and our possesions. If we have more to lose, we gain more from this service.

Think of infrastructure we build. People with more income benefit because they actually use it- low income persons don’t drive as much.

Now think of things like the FDIC or other loan protections. Banks love to lend money to high income customers. Try being poor and getting a loan.

But you’re absolutely right when you say that low income earners use social programs more. Take a look at the budget sometime and try and decide if the very small amount for social programs makes up for everything that’s protecting people with more money.

What’s fair? What’s just? Knowing that we are a healthier society with progressive taxation, and paying your fair share.

“The only way to get a refund that big off of such low income is if way too much money was withheld in the first place.”

Ever heard of the EIC? Note that you can get money even if no tax is paid. It’s not simple, but maybe you are.

“The earned income tax credit can be a great benefit for workers who don’t make much money. This tax break returns to qualified individuals a portion of the taxes they paid. It even can produce a tax refund for eligible filers who had no tax liability.”

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/itax/tips/20010130a.asp

“Those aren’t fair taxes at all. Fair taxes ARE progressive because, and here comes the shock bus, people with higher incomes get more from the government than others.”

Hate to bust your bubble but people with higher incomes already pay most of the taxes. People with low incomes can pay less than no tax (EIC).

But even the Beatles complained about progressive gone wild. The line “Should five percent appear too small Be thankful I don’t take it all ‘Cause I’m the taxman” referred to the top income tax rate of 95% in Britain at the time. I think they moved away.

I can’t believe conservatives begrudge the poor the EIC when corporate tax evasion cost us billions of dollars every year.

How can you be for rich shareholders getting massive tax cuts and not support a low income family- less than 11k a year- getting a few hundred dollars in tax credit to try to better themselves?

How can you be so stingy and selfish? It is really amazing how heartless and greedy you are. What’s next? Cutting off welafre cheese to toddlers? God you people are evil.

Published on Friday, February 28, 2003 by CommonDreams.org Corporate Tax Evasion on an Enormous Scale by Huck Gutman

President Bush has told the nation he is worried about what he calls a 'double taxation' on dividends. As a consequence he has proposed to Congress that taxes on dividends be eliminated. The effrontery of the proposal is stunning.

First, last year President Bush decided the nation might need to go a war. Then, instead of asking citizens to pay for its costs, he announced he would ask Congress to reduce taxes — just when the government's expenses are set to rise dramatically. (That is not, of course, even taking account of the projected $300 billion deficit for next year, a deficit predicted even before war costs are calculated.)

Second, with unemployment almost 50 percent higher than when he took office, with almost ten percent of America's manufacturing jobs lost in the past two years, George W. Bush decided to press for a tax cut that will go overwhelmingly to the nation's wealthiest citizens — those in the top one percent, whose annual incomes are over $374,000 a year. This small group of Americans, according to computations run by Citizens for Tax Justice, would get 48.9 percent of the total benefits this year should the President's plan to eliminate dividend taxes be approved.

Third, there is the hypocrisy of President Bush recommending the elimination of the tax on dividends on the basis that tens of millions of Americans own stock — when he knows that the great majority of the stock owned by most of those Americans is in pension funds, which makes them immune from dividend taxes anyway. While he claims he is helping everyone, the benefits of his proposed cuts go overwhelmingly to the wealthy.

Surely this is effrontery. But there's more.

A current system of double accounting is the shame of the nation, yet Mr. Bush does nothing about it. Never mentions it. Won't acknowledge that it exists. As readers might imagine, this double accounting is not available to working Americans. But it is available to corporations, who use this double accounting to avoid paying the taxes they legitimately owe the government.

The Joint Committee on Taxation of the U.S. Congress has concluded that corporations use differences between tax rules and accounting rules to avoid paying taxes on their profits. Take Enron, for example. Enron reported to its shareholders that it earned $3.625 billion in profit between 1996 and 2000. It then turned around and reported to the IRS that it had only earned $76 millions in profit during those years. This double accounting defrauded tens of thousands of shareholders and pensioners out of billions of dollars, for the cooked books were discovered to have masked questionable investment procedures.

What is not widely known, however, is that Enron's reported profits should have generated $1.142 billion in taxes — yet the corporation paid only $63million in those years.

This is a scandal that is in no way limited to Enron alone, or to a handful of rogue companies who keep double books and in the process defraud the government of money owed for taxes.

In a remarkable study, Harvard University economist Mihir A. Desai has calculated the difference between the profits that corporations reported to the Internal Revenue Service in 1998, and the profits that accountants certified in the annual reports the companies issued to their stockholders. The difference between them is staggering: $154 billion in 1998. The result of almost one-sixth of a trillion dollars hidden by accountants' sleight-of-hand from the IRS? The federal government did not collect $54 billion that should have been paid in taxes.

How do these corporations get away with two sets of books? How can they tell their stockholders they are raking in profits, and then turn around and tell the IRS that they had such a bad year that they will pay little or nothing in taxes?

Don't ask President Bush. He is, all too obviously, more concerned with reducing taxes on the wealthy than with collecting taxes owed by wealthy corporations. Eliminating double bookkeeping — requiring corporations to use similar accounting in both their corporate reports and the IRS filings — is truly sensible tax reform, but will not be forthcoming from those in power.

According to the New York Times, the IRS has recently reported that while small corporations bear their fair share of taxes, large corporations don't. Though the corporate tax rate is 35 percent, the IRS found that the 10,000 largest corporations paid only 20.3 percent of their 1999 profits in federal income taxes. The second tier of companies, good sized but not large, paid taxes at a rate almost 50 percent greater, 30.9 percent. And here's the kicker: the 10,000 largest corporations had over 25 times the total profits that the second tier generated — and got away with paying at a lesser rate even though they earned a lot more. That is not progressive taxation — it is regressive taxation.

By what means do corporations evade paying taxes on their profits? Tax shelters allow fake losses (think of all Enron's 'deals'), deductions are double accounted, and cash is transferred internally. Corporations claim excess depreciation or reinvest earnings abroad to shield them from domestic taxation.

But the largest single contributor to this evasion of taxes is the lavish awarding of the stock options to corporate executives. According to Professor Desai, "the proliferation of option instruments to compensate employees has had a significant role in creating a large and growing gap between tax income and book income and in changing the corporate tax base." Desai found that for the nation's largest corporations, option exercises consumed over a quarter — 27 percent — of operating cash flow in a five-year period covering 1996 through 2000. ("Operating cash flow" is a term used by accountants to indicate the money made by a company; it is a more accurate measure of what is going on than earnings, and is one way of considering a company's profitability.)

All those stock options we have been reading about? They not only weaken corporations and bilk stockholders, it turns out they divert a huge amount of tax revenue away from the IRS and into the pockets of wealthy corporate executives. CEOs get rich not only at the expense of stockholders, but at the expense of taxpayers: when corporations do not pay what they owe, the bill comes due to the rest of us, either in higher taxes or in a mounting national debt that our children will have to repay.

The problem is getting worse. Professor Desai found that in those same years, 1996 through 2000, the value of stock options awarded more than sextupled, from $32 billion to more than $199 billion. The value of stock options that were exercised — actually used — more than tripled, to $106 billion. $78 billion in options were exercised in the nation's 150 largest firms alone, with a resulting ratio of options exercised to operating cash flow of over 29 percent. Corporate profits, and the taxes that should be paid on those profits, are flooding into the investment portfolios and bank accounts of corporate executives.

There are solutions to the problem of stock options and double book-keeping. The first is simple. Require every corporation, and its accountants, to publish the income accounting it provides the IRS alongside the accounting it has traditionally provided in the company's annual report to stockholders. If there are going to be two sets of books, at least let everyone know this is the case, and open any fancy bookkeeping to the light and fresh air of public scrutiny.

The second solution is almost as simple. Change accounting rules so that stock options, the largest single contributor to the disparity between book accounting and tax accounting, are expensed on corporate balance sheets.

The third is radical, and hence harder to legislate — the special interests will never allow it. Require corporations to keep only one set of books. If they report a small profit or a loss to the government, then make sure they report that same earnings results to their shareholders and their bankers. If they claim they are profitable to their stockholders, let them pay taxes on those profits.

One solution or another, it is time to do something about double bookkeeping.

Jesus Christ! How does this discussion go from a legitimate issue related to a local event that is tied to campus and city issues to opposing diatribes about a flat tax vs. a progressive tax. Do you all have ADD or something? This is why campus politics has degraded to essentially intellectual masturbation, no one wants to discuss an issue, they just want to yell really loudly so that everyone can absorb their dogma. Neither conservatives nor hippies on this campus truly represent UW student interests just what Fox News or Air America tell them to repeat ad nauseum.

“corporate tax evasion cost us billions of dollars every year”

What a moron! No corporation has ever paid any tax at all. Corporations may send money to the government but it is the customers of the corporation that pay the tax.

Corporations try to avoid taxes just like they try to minimize rent, salaries, utilties and all the other costs. Corporations never pay taxes, only people pay taxes - they just don’t realize how much the goverment really takes from them.

Part of every dollar you pay for something represents taxes, over and above any sales taxes. Corporations are just agents of the government for collecting taxes.

The socialists just want to eliminate the middleman - the state owns everything, all income belongs to the state and the people are no more than slaves of the state.

Taxes are your patriotic duty. They are what supports our community, our soldiers and our governement. If you don’t want to be part of our community, fine, move to another country.

Otherwise, shut up and pay what you owe like the rest of us.

Corporations are recognized as people under our laws and therefore they have to pay taxes.

You are the idiot if you don’t understand how corporations RAISE your tax rate by the shell games they play with their accountants shifting assets around so they don’t have to pay their fair share of the taxes for our public infrastructure.

For every dollar that they pay a worker there is a rich executive/invesotr making thousands tax free. Why are you for the rich not paying their share of taxes? Do you want your tax rate to be higher?

For all the whining that conservatives do about taxes and what a burden they are I would think they would be against coporations shirking their responsibility to pay their dues in the form of state and federal taxes.

No, I think that the rich should pay their taxes like the rest of us and it amazes me how middle-class conservatives have been duped into thinking that tax loopholes for the wealthy are a good thing. They get an inordinate aount of benefits out of our tax dollars: roads, transportation, military protection etc and they pay the leas tin taxes. How can you be for that?

No one here was talking about socialism. Socialism is where the governement owns industry. We are talking about corporations paying what they owe under the current tax code. We are talking about enforcing the tax laws so that our income taxes can stay low!

CORPORATIONS DON’T PAY TAXES!!!!

The people who buy what corporations sell pay the taxes. Raise the taxes and the prices will rise - it’s just that simple.

stupid ass liberals think money grows on trees.

I wouldn’t say they pay less, they just get out of big chunks out of their bills…

“enforcing the tax laws”

The tax law is so complex that it’s almost impossible to enforce. It’s complex because anything simple just wouldn’t be “fair” - to someone, someplace. The only way to make it “fair” is to introduce many complicated rules. This makes it so complex that a large amount of resources are dedicated to trying to avoid taxes (there are many legal ways to avoid taxes). Filing taxes are a pain even for regular W-2 wage slaves.

Perfect enforcement of the tax laws (as they are now) would require a complete loss of privacy. There could be no cash ar barter transactions - everything would have to be recorded and reported to the government.

The tax laws should be simplified, even if it doesn’t seem fair.

austin king is a fatass little loser he looks like a fat shaggy

well, apparently the people like their pols plump, because austin king is also the most insanely popular elected official we’ve ever had on campus in all my years here. i saw him at the block party yesterday, people just throw themselves at him, it’s crazy.

Raise the taxes and the prices will rise:

Yes, and this is why getting rid of the dividend tax was a bad idea. If you make corporations pay more taxes then the cost will be passed along to consumers, but if the investor pays taxes then that cost will not be passed along.

See? I got you to admit that dividends should be taxed at a high rate to avoid costs being passed along to the consumer. It’s the only way around the problem.

(evil laugh)

” but if the investor pays taxes then that cost will not be passed along.”

There is no free lunch.

The dividend rates will be viewed differently based on their tax status. Higher taxes result in higher dividends result in higher prices.

For example, the interest rates paid by tax free municpal bonds are lower than the rates on taxible bonds.

PS. Taxes on dividends is why many companies do not pay them. They buy back stock instead. Stockhoders sell a few shares and pay long-term capital gains rates instead of receiving dividends and paying ordinary incone rates.

There’s no way around the problem.

(evil laugh)

“There’s no way around the problem.

(evil laugh)”

Yeah but you see…There is though. We had so called “double taxed” dividends for years until Bush repealed them and they worked fine. Now what do we have? Higher prices than ever…

There is a way around the problem its just that the moneyed elite that control our governement are unwilling to look at the answers. One answer: completely get rid of “for profit” corporations. That would be one way. Another way, accounting regulations to disallow companies to pass all this on i terms of higher costs. Another way and here is the kicker for YOU lmfao

TAX the rich at higher income tax rates. Push them up to 40-50%. That would more than take care of the problem.

“Hate to bust your bubble but people with higher incomes already pay most of the taxes. People with low incomes can pay less than no tax (EIC).

But even the Beatles complained about progressive gone wild. The line “Should five percent appear too small Be thankful I don’t take it all ‘Cause I’m the taxman” referred to the top income tax rate of 95% in Britain at the time. I think they moved away.”

The point of the entire post was that high income people SHOULD PAY MORE. Saying they already do doesn’t make the argument for a flat tax system.

Also, the Beatles loved smoking bans. In the song, “I am the Walrus”, John wrote those great words, “Expert, textpert, joking smoker, don’t you think the Joker laughs at you?”

“high income people SHOULD PAY MORE.”

But shouldn’t low income people pay something? Many don’t and therefore don’t care how the government spends money - just as long as they get some.

“Another way, accounting regulations to disallow companies to pass all this on i terms of higher costs.”

What a howler! That was done for CEOs, salary over a million isn’t tax deductable unless it is “at risk” - that was what led to the explosion of stock options and bonus deals that have CEOs making hundreds of millions.

The Law of Unintended Consequences operates to frustrate any government scheme to make the rich pay more. The laws just get more complex and only those with enough money to hire somebody to figure out the game amke out.

“One answer: completely get rid of “for profit” corporations.”

The USSR tried that. Check under dustbin of history for details.

Getting rid of “for profit” cosporations is not the same as communism you freak. It works on the Co-op model and there are models out there. God your complete closed mindeness and lack of insight is astounding. There is a middle ground between all out Laissez-Faire capitalism and Communism you know. In fact it’s what we have here in the US!!! Are we communists? God you fuckers are dumb. You see things in Black/White.

Low income people are not given tax breaks out of charity it is because they can’t AFFORD to pay taxes. This is a very small portion of the poulation anyway.

Again I will say that you fuckers make me ill. You want some single mother whose husband left her to have to pay taxes when she can’t feed her children, and then you complain when those children misbehave because they were never supervised b/c the mother was working all the time. Yet, you happily hand the uber-rich who should be paying far more in taxes than they are massive handouts.

I would like all posters to get this thorugh their heads.

THE AMERICAN DREAM IS A MYTH. AMERICA IS NOT A MERITOCRACY. The odds of any of you becoming wealthy not having been born into the aristocracy are very very slim. Bill Gates slim. So realize your class status and stop drinking in the propaganda of the mega rich. You have nothing to gain. The most you will make is 200k a year if you are a doctor. Is that a nice standard of living? Yes. Does it make you rich? No.

You people clearly have no conception of how disgustingly rich the people who run this country are. If you idd you would be hollering for them to pay more taxes.

The above poster voted for Kerry. He seems confused too!

Have you ever thought that those people worked hard for their money? Isn’t that what the American dream is? Working hard and being rewarded for it.

Just because you are not willing to work hard (and hence will not become rich) don’t bitch at those people willing to do so. That a total racket, man.

“Have you ever thought that those people worked hard for their money? Isn’t that what the American dream is? Working hard and being rewarded for it.

Just because you are not willing to work hard (and hence will not become rich) don’t bitch at those people willing to do so. That a total racket, man.”

Lmfao. Obviously you have no idea how rich these people are. People don’t get rich from hard work, they get rich from inheriting. That’s the way that capital accumulates, and the more money you start with the easier it is to make more.

Don’t tell me I don’t work hard. I like my life and am fine with my income. However, saying that if you work hard enough you can make as much money as you want is naive. Becoming a doctor puts you in the 200k range. That is a pittance compared to the rich. You obviously have never been around truly rich people or you would know that they don’t make mos tof their money from salary (work) but from investments (lots of capital usually inherited).

Of course I think people who work hard should be rewarded, and they are! But if you are a million or billionaire you should be paying your tax obligations like the rest of us. Yet most rich people pay less of their income percentage wise than you or I do.

But you fail to grasp two things: 1) they are entitled to earn as much money as they can; 2) they pay less taxes because of the way the tax code is set up. Why sneer at the rich people if they’re just playing by the rules, and those rules allow them to shelter income?

Nor do I understand your utter contempt for the super-rich. Who are you to draw the line in the sand that says $X is a good living and $X+ is an obcene amount of money.

What you also fail to grasp is that a guy like Bill Gates created his empire from nothing (i.e. no inheritance) and now employs how many well paid people throughout the world? Or has created how many jobs because of his creation?

Finally, your argument that the super-rich get their money from inheritance simply does not hold water. And are we to assume that if you were able to amass a fortune that you would not like to pass that along to your family?

By the way, you sure do howl a lot about this issue but I have yet to see you propose any way of eliminating this so-called problem. Most of those “solutions” simply smack of socialism/communism. No system is perfect. I’ll take a free market system that allows me to create my own future but has stinking rich folk along with it than a socialist system that assigns me a certain capacity and has all of the money and power tied up in politicians.

Think about that.

There is an easy way to eliminate the problem. Reinstate a progressive tax.

Same fix for Soc Security raise the cap from 90k to 140k. Problem fixed.

No one is “entitled” to earn money. We live in a democracy and if we elect people who tax higher then they have to pay it. Simple as that.

You always think in absolutes. Free market (which doesn’t exist) vs. Communism. Inherit everything vs. inherit nothing. It’s a sign of a simple brain to think in such black and white terms. REally. It is. Studies have been done on it and it means that your thinking is actually simpler and closer to an apes.

The socialism/communism thing is simply a smoke screen. No one in this thread has said anything about socialism. You would understand that if you had brain larger than a reptiles.

STAY ON TOPIC.

Your progressive tax is what led to economic stagnation in the US until Reagan came in and correctly pointed out that punishing your most productive citizens for being successful was not a good way to run government.

Look, I think the “stinking rich” could do more to help out other people. But I also think that people like you only look at the actual dollars and fail to realize where those dollars come from, which is usually successful businesses that employ thousands of people.