Tag: taxes

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Congress is doing something right?!?!?!?

I just signed a petition to show my support for a new bill in Congress that would actually would actually help turn our economy around by ending the wars, raising taxes on millionaires, creating 5 million jobs in just two years, and more.

It’s up to us to stand with the few brave members of Congress who are willing to push for the “unrealistic” ideas that would actually create solutions and force anyone who stands in the way to explain themselves — or get out of the way.

Can you join me in showing your support at the link below?  Link removed – 2011 article

 

Thanks!

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9-9-9

I do have a question for presidential candidate Herman Cain with his 9-9-9 tax proposal.

If we institute a 9% Federal tax is that to be added on top of state and city taxes?  In Tennessee very little is excluded from sales tax. That would have citizens in this part of the world paying close to a 20% sales tax every time they buy anything.

Can you say regressive, and let’s tax the poor a bigger percentage of their incomes.  I suppose his argument would be to point to the 9% income tax, but many of the our poorest citizens pay little or no taxes now.  There is another whammy on this group.  Especially so since many of these folks are the hard core unemployable, uneducated, disabled, or facing other life circumstances keeping them down.  ( I know a lot of folks will argue with me, but I do not believe that the percentage of folks willing to not work and live hand to mouth is that large.)

Could there be some meaning to 9-9-9.  If you turn it upside down it is 6-6-6.

I ran across this little tidbit after I posted this article:

“Without bold alternatives, Americans desperate for big solutions are attracted to bold crackpot ideas like Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” proposal, which would raise taxes on the poor and cut them for the rich.”

The above quote is from an article by Robert Reich at commondreams.org

To see the whole article follow this link:  The Meagerness of the Republican Debates, the Smallness of the President’s Solutions, and the Need for a Progressive Alternative

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Our Infrastructure in a Nutshell

There is a sidewalk in the area where I live and work.  It is well used if you consider that most folks will drive a ¼ mile rather than walk.  I frequently walk the 2/3 of a mile to work on this urban path. The sidewalk is in disrepair.  Some slabs have moved creating uneven surfaces between them.  Parts of the sidewalk are crumbling.  Generally it is in need of repair or replacement.

Instead of either option the city has sprayed areas that could be problematic to walkers with red paint.  This I suppose is to alert you to the potential danger.  It more or less works in the daylight hours.  Nighttime is another matter.  Of course, uneven sidewalks are the lesser of the dangers in this particular neighborhood.  I live where I live for the convenient nearness to my employment, but sometimes I wonder.  But I ramble.

The crumbling sidewalk is a good analogy for the general state of our infrastructure in the good old US of A.  We are not tending to basic maintenance.  We are pushing projects off to some future time.  We have this obsession with “No taxes”.  Well guess what, it takes money to run a society, to run a country.   As a single person making a better than average income, I pay a goodly amount in taxes.  The only tax that really galls me is sales tax, probably because it is so regressive.  I see high sales taxes as politicians failing to institute a fair tax system.

I for one would like to see some more taxes, but on those who have managed to avoid most of them thanks to our politicians.  It is time we taxed those who can really afford before our country totally degenerates into a third world nation covered with red paint.

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A Must Read

“If corporations and households taking in $1 million or more in income each year were now paying taxes at the same annual rates as they did back in 1961, the IPS researchers found, the federal treasury would be collecting an additional $716 billion a year… the federal debt to investors would almost totally vanish over the next decade.”

From an article by Sam Pizzigati — Plutocracy: If Corporations and the Rich Paid 1960s-Level Taxes, the Debt Would Vanish

When everyone has a piece of the pie, you may have seconds. To whom more is given, more is expected. American corporations need to remember that they need to dance with the one that brought them, the US of A.

Our current political/economic crisis is not that hard a problem to solve.  We as a collective group should not let greed rule the day.  We are all in this together, lets act like it.  The American dream should not, must not include la noblesse.  Keep your Marquis and Vicomte where they belong, to history.

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Blue State vs. Red State Explained

This one of the many things that float around the Internet. It may have been meant to be funny, informative or both. It was sent to me as Texas translations of Californiaese. I think it works very nicely to expain the difference between Red states and Blue states.

Enjoy.

      Blue States Red States
Arsenal of Weapons Gun Collection
Delicate Wetlands Swamp
Undocumented Worker Illegal Alien
Cruelty-Free Materials Synthetic Fiber
Assault and Battery Attitude Adjustment
Heavily Armed Well-protected
Narrow-minded Righteous
Taxes or Your Fair Share Coerced Theft
Commonsense Gun Control Gun Confiscation Plot
Illegal Hazardous Explosives Fireworks or Stump Removal
Nonviable Tissue Mass Unborn Baby
Equal Access to Opportunity Socialism
Multicultural Community High Crime Area
Fairness or Social Progress Marxism
Upper Class or “The Rich” Self-Employed
Progressive, Change Big Government Scheme
Sniper Rifle Scoped Deer Rifle
Investment For the Future Higher Taxes
Healthcare Reform Socialized Medicine
Extremist, Judgmental, or Hater Conservative
Truants Homeschoolers
High Capacity Magazine Standard Capacity Magazine
Religious Zealot Church-going
Reintroduced Wolves Sheep and Elk Killers
Fair Trade Coffee Overpriced Yuppie Coffee
Exploiters or “The Rich” Employed or Land Owner
The Gun Lobby NRA Members
Assault Weapon Semi-Auto (Grandpa’s M1 Carbine)
Fiscal Stimulus New Taxes and Higher Taxes
Same Sex Marriage Legalized Perversion
Overseas Contingency Operation 
War
Mandated Eco-Friendly Lighting   Chinese Mercury-Laden Light Bulbs
Global Warming or Climate Change 
  Weather & it ain’t rainin?
General Welfare of Americans
Gov’t Hand-outs at Taxpayers? Expense
Outdated History                
Constitution & Declaration of Independence
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Just Imagine — No Taxes

There is personal wealth and then there is community wealth.  I read this a while back in a discussion of the growing wealth gap in this country.  One measure of wealth that has a lot to with the general happiness of a population is community wealth. This includes such things as parks, good roads, support of the arts, community buildings, education, etc.

I started thinking about this again as I have just come back from the Shelby County Clerks Office where I was registering my vehicle.   It is not an awful government building, I’ve been in a lot worse, but neither is it grand.  I still remember where they housed the County Sanitarians in Pulaski County, Arkansas.  It was an old hospital that had long been past its prime when the medicos abandoned it.  Now the County was trying to use it for office space.   It does seem to me that many government buildings get short shrift. Continue reading “Just Imagine — No Taxes”