Palin Options

[Robert]

Just wanted to point out I called Palin as VP over 4 months ago, for all the same reasons the decision was made now.
If McCain wins, I honestly believe this will be what puts him over the top.

Also you couldn't ask for better timing to make this announcement.
The DNC convention ended last night with a huge bang an there's not a single leading news story about it.
The news is 100% about Palin as VP.
Talk about stealing someones thunder.

I hope they win an McCain dies the next day.

[Blitz]

When politicians rob (tax) Peter to pay (entitelments) Paul, they can always count on unwavering support from Paul!

This country is VERY close to that exacte scenerio... I don't remember the exact figures (and If I was not drinking i'd look them up), but I believe the bottom 40% pay no federal income tax at all. If the lliberals have their way and can push it up even higher they will never be out of power.

A great outcome for the 10% that will switch to the tax free side. Not so great for the rest.

[HammaTime]

Blitz, opposition to taxation is a wonderful topic. However, to keep things above board, we should really spend a little bit of time familiarizing ourselves with reality.

We could start with the most basic of research by a simple click to check out the basic Wiki page on income tax.

Here we see that the bottom bracket has to pay 10% on the income they earn. You are in that bottom bracket if you are single and earn $8,025 or less. If you find yourself in that bracket, God help you, but you still have to fork over ten percent of your income, and of course, you are still hit with payroll tax.

Obviously, this isn't the whole story, after the personal exemption and standard deduction, that 10% on income probably drops to about 4%, but scroll down the page and take a look at the history of income tax rates. You'd have to go back to the post-depression era of 1931 to find a time when the top bracket was taxed as little as it is taxed today.

Now click over to the wiki page that lists the various country's tax revenues as a percentage of their Gross Domestic Product. You'll have to scroll down to the bottom to find the U.S. is fourth from the bottom.

In the U.S., 45% of our federal budget comes directly from income tax, and only 14% from corporate income taxes.

Of course, one reason we have one of the lowest taxation rates of any industrialized country is because we are a country that is addicted to borrowing money from China and Japan. These two countries basically own our ass. Check out this chart which depicts the changes to our national debt since Reagan:


That chart comes from this page which has a number of interesting charts related to our government's spending.

All of this makes for a very complex picture, one that can't be summed up by saying we are robbing Peter to pay Paul. The reality is that we are borrowing, borrowing and borrowing our way into an ownership society in which we'll be the owned and China will be doing the owning...

This post has been edited by HammaTime: 09/06/08 2:31pm