2008 to 2012 what has changed? (Page 3)

I disagree. There are even more criteria you have to think about. Maybe you live in a booming area, like North Dakota. Everything seems great to you, but you don't like how the rest of the country is going. Then you'd probably answer yes to Bloomberg's poll and no to The Hill's. 

We are definitely arguing over nothing though and those are the best arguments!

I agree with the sentiment, but am puzzled how people can then say it is a problem to increase the marginal tax rate on the top 1%. Surely we all agree that the country and economy as a whole is doing poorly overall. The "job creators" have not created enough jobs, yet still make a very nice living. They have, for the most part, recovered, and are doing better than 4 years ago.

Didn't read everything in this thread and I know it is targeted at the federal level.  However in Illinois my personal income tax in 2008 was 3% it is now %5.  The tax on my business was 3.5% and is now 8%.  

This was supposed to fix the pension problem as well as other debt issues in my fine state.  However, a few days ago Illinois credit was downgraded yet again and the pension debt is increasing as our politican's have chosen to ignore it.  We are headed for disaster.  

To answer the question, I am about the same as 2008 in terms of take home income.  My salary has gone up, but so have my taxes (not because I changed tax brackets).  

My year end bonus as gone down and will go down even more this year, even though we made more money this year as a company, as we have to pay significantly more in tax to our fine state. 

We are actually looking into opening a 1 person office in a state that is more business friendly to help reduce our tax hit. It would cost us significantly less to lease shared office space and pay somebody $20 an hour to sit there and do admin\clerical work if we can incorporate there.  

Because it's not the answer.  As I've posted before if you taxed everyone making over $100,000 a year at 100% it would generate about $1.6 trillion.  That would barely not even pay off the deficit for this year. And we all know it's not going to go to 100%.

It's a drop in the bucket.  It sounds good in speeches that the "rich have the pay their share" but it's like targeting the NEA or Planned parenthood funding when ignoring the defense or SS budgets.  They pale in size.

You really want to fix the lack of tax income?  Take out the loopholes that corporations have bought into law.  That's the only way to really change home much $ comes in.  Of course that has it's own set of ramifications but at least it's not perpetuating this class warfare BS.

I agree wtih the getting rid of loopholes. Not just for corporations, but pretty much altogether.

But I don't think that trying to return the tax rates to what they were under Clinton is "class warfare". Unless we are also referring to the outrage at tax time at the percentage of people who did not pay taxes because their income was too low as also being a form of "class warfare" (albeit against a much weaker class).

But you are only talking about this "return" for one "class" of citizens.  If you want to go back to Clintonian rates, go back to them for everyone.

To what end?  So you increase the tax rates back to the pre-Bush tax cuts (for everyone, not just the "rich").  It's estimated that will bring in $80 billion extra.  Sounds like a lot of money right?  But the deficit this year is around $1.4 trillion.

If this $80 billion would make such a difference then why did the $800 billion of stimulus spending not make 10x the difference?

And what would the government do with that money?  Are they going to send a check out to everyone who did not get the tax hikes?  Of course not.  It *should* go to paying off the debt, which will do jack-squat for the guy living paycheck to paycheck.  Even if it is put towards services how much of each $1 in taxes do you think each person will see in services once it is run thru the government waste machine?  Pennies..

So you alienate an entire class, make them think twice about further investing in the country to give the rest of the country next to no benefits.  It does not make sense.

The problem with the "make the 1% pay their fair share" problem is it only looks at additional revenue to the Fed and ignores the side effects.  I believe in 2011 the 1% threshold was $340k and up so yes that's still a lot of money but we're not talking Warren Buffet here.  I am technically a 1%er because I own my business and it's an S Corp so all business profits go directly to my personal income even though I don't "take home" anywhere near $340k.  So there are a ton of small business owners that would be directly hit and that would cost jobs.  If my profit goes down due to increased taxes I have to cut costs to maintain at the business or I have to cut spending at home.  Something has to give.

Lets say you eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the 1% for example.  That would increase my personal taxes by $5,000.  I can guarantee you if my budget gets cut by $5k I am going to have to remove that from my lifestyle.  Meaning I'll drop my golf club membership, probably not do an ironman next year, one less vacation to somewhere.  First world sacrifices for sure, but those are all industries that employ people and pay taxes.  The way our system works money gets taxed every time it changes hands.  So I spend $5k the govt taxes it, the company pays the salary, it gets taxed, the worker spends the money he gets taxed etc...

I'm probably not doing a good job explaining it, but my personal opinion is the more you tax the rich the more you hurt the economy and the net net of it all is less revenue to the government.  Also, IMHO the government is far less efficient with the money as well so only a fraction of the $5k actually gets to the economy.

I don't necessarily agree increasing taxes on the wealthy will have as big of a negative impact as some are suggesting.  The rich will still spend disposable income in much the same manner as before.  But what do you think is going to happen to the economy if we cut spending by 20% across the board, as some conservatives are suggesting?  It would have a very detrimental impact our economy.  There has to be a combination of spending cuts and tax increases as well as entitlement reform to get us out of this mess.  

I am also waiting for the day each side proposes their plan to move this country forward.  Conservatives demonize the President on his tax hikes for the wealthy, and they have done a good job focusing on that point, because I couldn't tell you what else Obama is going to do to improve the economy.  On the other hand, Romney's plan has gone from 59 points down to 5, but I couldn't tell you why he cut 54 out and there are no specifics to the 5 he has now. 

We can't go on the way we currently are, so specifics lose elections.

That is because if you tell the American people the truth, that they can't have their cake and eat it too, they will not vote for you.

Here is the smoke and mirrors argument you keep trying to push... raise the tax rate on the richest. Warren Buffet will not pay one more red penny than he already is. Neither will Romney. Obama likes to hammer away at raising the tax rate, but it is irrelevant. They do not make their money on income, but on capital gains. Obama has not once hammered on the importance of raising the capital gains tax. It is how he will make most his money too. If he was serious about the rich paying more, he would get serious about reforming the tax code and increasing capital gains.... but we all know that won't happen.

So Obama keeps putting out the straw man argument for the rich to pay their fair share, yet he proposes nothing that will actually do that. Once again, pushing party lines, stirring class warfare, and whipping up the base, over a problem he has no intention of solving. And as was pointed out... a solution that would actually not solve the problem of the government outspending their revenue which Obama has been quite a fan of.

Ya, and there is the answer to the question... are we better off. No we are not. You can argue all you want that Obama made the recession less harsh than it would have been.. heck I could even agree with you... yes, it would have been worse.

The problem is, we did not fix one single thing structurally. All we did is borrow more money to put into the economy. The stimulus was a band-aid... put over to cover up the one single simple truth... the government spends more than it makes. It isn't rocket science. After decades and decades of promises and give aways... to the rich and poor alike... we are at a point that we can no longer sustain it. The house of cards is going to fall.

I mean boo hoo... the rich won't have as much money, the poor won't have as many benefits, Grandma won't have health care, industry will not get any hand outs.... how exactly are they going to get all that when the economy collapses and a dollar is worth a nickel and unemployment is at 40%?

I don't understand people complaining about taxes being to high. Lets look at other countries. Do you want a good military, school system, public safety system, roads,etc?

http://www.businesspundit.com/12-countries-with-the-highest-lowest-tax-rates/

I think that currently we are seeing about the lowest marginal tax rates  for most if not all tax brackets over at least the last 50-years. I'm prepared to see my  taxes raised.   However, approximately 50% of this country pays no taxes.  That's not right!  Everyone needs to pay something.  Before raising my taxes I would want to see that everyone is contributing, and some serious cuts to the budget across the board.

So Ray, let me try to understand this...you and I seem to be in agreement that to deal with the deficit, the government needs to take in more revenue...but in economic hard times, you really think the bottom 50% ought to be taxed at a higher rate?  From what I have read, the GOP has dug its feet in saying they will only negotiate with the president if raising taxes on the wealthy is taken off the table.  In my eyes (along with an overwhelming majority of Americans who are not at the top of the economic totem pole) it doesn't sound logical to raise taxes on the poor and lower middle class folks who are struggling.  The president's plan to tax income in excess of $250,000 at a slightly higher rate sounds reasonable to me.

Romney has advocated cutting taxes across the board for everybody AND raising defense spending higher than the defense department even requested.  You said you are for across the board cuts in spending...and Romney does seem to endorse cuts...but what cuts?  I guess one of them could be considered the VoucherCare experiment.

Honestly, I don't think the answer lays in raising taxes on a single mom with 2 kids earning $25,000 a year (before taxes).

Plus, Ray, you did mention everyone needs to pay something.  What about those that are not able to work?  Something tells me the "50% of Americans who don't pay taxes" line definitely includes people who can not work.  How about those earning minimum wage?  Do we put the screws to them too?  In a perfect world, of course we'd all want folks paying something into the system...but there comes a point where it can be like trying to extract blood from a stone.

In Sean Hannity's eyes, it's class warfare...to me, it's not class warfare, it just makes more sense than the alternative at this time. 

^Cool Ray.  Yep, there are definitely folks out there gaming the system.  It happens on both ends of the spectrum (the rich and the poor).  I think we can agree there's definitely room for crackdowns on both ends.

I guess my other thought is this...Obama promised he would not raise taxes on the middle class...and he kept that promise.  I am part of that group and I know it first-hand.  But, if Obama were to have, "made those 50% of folks not paying taxes" (which again, is debatable, but I'll entertain it) he would have been called out on raising the taxes of middle class Americans.  He would have been labeled a typical tax-happy liberal.  

btw, why aren't conservatives praising Obama for cutting the amount of federal jobs that have been cut during his administration?  I thought conservatives wanted smaller government?  I guess I know that answer...politics.

I really think we are moving in the right direction.  Romney/Ryan supporters disagree.  Life goes on, my Vikes are 1-0 tied atop the NFC North!!!