Has McCain actually already LOST?(Yes he has)

[Illuminatus Primus]

Maybe some people don't realize that people are taxed on net income? Sure, there are plenty of small business owners who have more than $250k in revenue and are barely getting by, but they're not taxed on their gross revenue; they're taxed on their net income after expenses. Any small business owner who is netting $250k after expenses is not just getting by; he's doing pretty well and he can afford to give a little back to the community.

I also the absurd presumption giving rich people more money will result in productive, sustainable growth, not spending on speculation or luxury or foreign goods. But this is nothing new. Joe the Plumber could not understand that Obama was not going to tax him on the value of the business he was buying, but on net income, which was FAR below 250,000, meaning he was much more a beneficiary of Obama economics (both in better tax cuts for him, and also helping him out with evil socialist redistributive economics like investment in infrastructure and education and health care reform, reducing his social/economic insecurity). And why? Well as he himself has said - those rich people work hard, and who is he to ask for their money? Its pathetic how many people who have been totally left out in the cold have been brainwashed by right-wing economics.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Another thing, why is the top income bracket so low? Wasn't it 200,000 in the 1950s (that glorious time to conservatives, when the top marginal rate was 90%)? That's at least over a million today. We should have a 500,000, 750,000, 1,000,000, and 5,000,000 bracket.

Of course, say this, and middle class people literally squeal that we have to beg and scrape and plead to the rich to live and spend money here or they'll all move to China. Its pathetic.

[Durandal]

Fuck...I've never made $250,000 in the last 10 years I've been singing my ass off. I could take that one sum and be able to nearly buy a house off in Downtown Toronto. Personally I think he's setting the bar a little high. I think it should start around $150,000 a year. That's where you really start getting into wealthy territory. 5 years of that salary and you're sailing along pretty nicely..

$250,000 is a good line to draw because it's the line where your income basically guarantees you a comfortable life regardless of where you live. $150,000 is a lot of money, but for example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, it'll basically allow you to cover your mortgage without watching your checkbook like a hawk. That's about it. I'm not saying you're poor in that income bracket, but in this area, you're not some titan walking among men either.

But if you're up around $250,000, even out here, you're doing pretty damn well.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Of course conservatives hide behind chicanery like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_Law]Hauser's Law[/url]. Here's some criticism.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Oh, and 200,000? The top marginal rate in 1950? Is equivalent to 1,527,000 in 2007 dollars. The modern rates are part of the right-wing's design to conflate the upper middle and professional class with the rich and ultra-rich.

[Darth Wong]

Fuck...I've never made $250,000 in the last 10 years I've been singing my ass off. I could take that one sum and be able to nearly buy a house off in Downtown Toronto. Personally I think he's setting the bar a little high. I think it should start around $150,000 a year. That's where you really start getting into wealthy territory. 5 years of that salary and you're sailing along pretty nicely..

$250,000 is a good line to draw because it's the line where your income basically guarantees you a comfortable life regardless of where you live. $150,000 is a lot of money, but for example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, it'll basically allow you to cover your mortgage without watching your checkbook like a hawk. That's about it. I'm not saying you're poor in that income bracket, but in this area, you're not some titan walking among men either.

But if you're up around $250,000, even out here, you're doing pretty damn well.

It's also worth pointing out that a typical small business owner who's netting $250k is probably doing considerably better in real terms than a paid employee making the same money. This is because a lot of costs fall into a nether region between "personal use" and "business use" for a small business owner. Cars, computers, even part of his house and utility bills can be considered business expenses. I'm not a US tax expert, but in Canada, if you have a 2000 square foot house and you have designated your 400 square foot study as a home office for the business, you can classify 20% of all house-related costs as a business expense.

Any real small business owner would know this, but Joe The Plumber is a fucking moron and/or a liar.

[Guardsman Bass]

Oh, and 200,000? The top marginal rate in 1950? Is equivalent to 1,527,000 in 2007 dollars. The modern rates are part of the right-wing's design to conflate the upper middle and professional class with the rich and ultra-rich.

That bothers me too. The lower brackets all have divisions even though they don't necessarily equate to clean-cut separation in lifestyles at those levels (for example, a person making $75,000 is probably not drastically poorer or more meager in their livelihoods than a person making $85,000 - yet they fall into different tax brackets), yet suddenly above $250,000 it's all the same?

Personally, I think the highest cut-off should be at $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 in annual income. That gets you beyond the upper middle class professionals (like doctors and even most of the wealthier attorneys, although not the richest of them), to the point where the only people being hit with the million-and-over rate are probably going to be CEOs, sports professionals, a few exceptions to the above (like special doctors and lawyers), and so forth. They can probably handle it - plus you could use the tax code more effectively as an economic management tool, giving breaks in certain areas to encourage investment.

[Guardsman Bass]

To add -

it would basically separate the top 1% of United States incomes (when you leave the upper middle class and get into the lower affluent class), from the 0.1% of U.S. incomes, where you get into pretty solid "affluent to upper-affluent" territory, and onwards and upwards.

[Patrick Degan]

Most of the McCain/Palin campaign right now seems to be focused on accusing Obama of "wanting to spread the wealth". Is this attack really supposed to be devastatingly effective, in an environment where most of the country is furious at the rich guys on Wall Street for taking their money?

Well, let's face it: the GOP is only a step or two away from the argument that Taxation = Socialism.

[Slacker]

Fuck...I've never made $250,000 in the last 10 years I've been singing my ass off. I could take that one sum and be able to nearly buy a house off in Downtown Toronto. Personally I think he's setting the bar a little high. I think it should start around $150,000 a year. That's where you really start getting into wealthy territory. 5 years of that salary and you're sailing along pretty nicely..

That depends on geography. 150K a year for a family on Long Island is middle middle class.

[General Zod]

Fuck...I've never made $250,000 in the last 10 years I've been singing my ass off. I could take that one sum and be able to nearly buy a house off in Downtown Toronto. Personally I think he's setting the bar a little high. I think it should start around $150,000 a year. That's where you really start getting into wealthy territory. 5 years of that salary and you're sailing along pretty nicely..

That depends on geography. 150K a year for a family on Long Island is middle middle class.

That's why there's separate income brackets for families as opposed to individuals. An individual earning $150k is most certainly NOT middle class.

[Slacker]

That's fairly upper middle class here on Long Island.

Realize this is a region where single family, three bedroom homes were consistenly going for 4-500K as little as a year ago.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I think we have sufficant legal proveable truth that both "Joe the Plumber" and "B(ee) Girl" are bboth liars.

[Guardsman Bass]

That's fairly upper middle class here on Long Island.

Realize this is a region where single family, three bedroom homes were consistenly going for 4-500K as little as a year ago.

That's why I think they really need to divide the top bracket up into more divisions. $250,000 is, as you mentioned, upper middle class in some places - but earning a million in income every year is pretty much rich virtually everywhere in the United States except in certain communities where the standard is ridiculously high because everyone else is richer.

[Covenant]

Even in areas that are expensive to live in, a 250k income is extremely high, and there's no reason not to consider them upper class. Plus, 250k is where the higher taxes begin, so you can make 235k and still not be in that inflated tax bracket anyway. I certainly don't know what people worry about. So few people can count incomes that high (family incomes are in a different tax bracket), and nearly no small businesses either. Things like what the Republicans have been tossing about are simply stupid, because they're treating a small business like a Highschooler's lawnmowing job. Salaries and a variety of maintenance, including equipment purchases, are deductables in an incorporated business. So an incorporated small business that pulls in 250k a year, but pays out 75k of it in deductable expenses and 100k in salaries would only be a 75k income business (as far as I understand the law). A company that makes 250k in profit is probably doing close to 400k or 500k in business, so it's a little absurd to criticize the tax plan. As it stands, it encourages people to buy more gear, start new locations, and take on new staff. That sounds to me like a very capitalistic system, and a healthy one.

[Durandal]

Covenant, that's correct as far as I know. Businesses are not taxed on revenue, just on profit. Just like if you sell $50,000 worth of stock that you bought for $25,000, you aren't taxed on $50,000 worth of income. If you were, there'd be no point in investing.

[Pu-239]

Someone enlighten me, but is the tax code set up so the tax rates are a continuous function, i.e. if you make slightly over 250k (like 251), you only pay the increased rate on that extra 1000, or is it a step function where you're better off making 249 rather than 251? There seems to be a perception (valid or not I don't know) that you're worse off if you're just over the edge.

[Big Phil]

Fuck...I've never made $250,000 in the last 10 years I've been singing my ass off. I could take that one sum and be able to nearly buy a house off in Downtown Toronto. Personally I think he's setting the bar a little high. I think it should start around $150,000 a year. That's where you really start getting into wealthy territory. 5 years of that salary and you're sailing along pretty nicely..

$250,000 is a good line to draw because it's the line where your income basically guarantees you a comfortable life regardless of where you live. $150,000 is a lot of money, but for example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, it'll basically allow you to cover your mortgage without watching your checkbook like a hawk. That's about it. I'm not saying you're poor in that income bracket, but in this area, you're not some titan walking among men either.

But if you're up around $250,000, even out here, you're doing pretty damn well.

It's also worth pointing out that a typical small business owner who's netting $250k is probably doing considerably better in real terms than a paid employee making the same money. This is because a lot of costs fall into a nether region between "personal use" and "business use" for a small business owner. Cars, computers, even part of his house and utility bills can be considered business expenses. I'm not a US tax expert, but in Canada, if you have a 2000 square foot house and you have designated your 400 square foot study as a home office for the business, you can classify 20% of all house-related costs as a business expense.

Any real small business owner would know this, but Joe The Plumber is a fucking moron and/or a liar.

Two jobs ago, my boss was making about $150K/year, and the company took in about $2.5M-$3M in revenue each year; we employed ~35 full time and ~20 part time staff. My current company employs ~80 full time employees on revenues of ~$15M; I don't know what the two owners make, but I'm betting it's no more than $150K (and probably more like $120K), as they're betting heavily on making their millions through an IPO or an acquisition (i.e., sell the company and get rich).

I have yet to meet a small business owner (who isn't a lawyer or doctor) making $250K/year.

[Surlethe]

Someone enlighten me, but is the tax code set up so the tax rates are a continuous function, i.e. if you make slightly over 250k (like 251), you only pay the increased rate on that extra 1000, or is it a step function where you're better off making 249 rather than 251? There seems to be a perception (valid or not I don't know) that you're worse off if you're just over the edge.

It's continuous. You pay, say, 10 pennies out of each dollar on the first $15,000 you make, and then 15 pennies out of the next $10,000. That's what tax brackets are: the $75,000-$100,000 bracket, e.g., tells you how much you pay on the portion of your income more than $75,000 and less than $100,000.

[Slacker]

That's fairly upper middle class here on Long Island.

Realize this is a region where single family, three bedroom homes were consistenly going for 4-500K as little as a year ago.

That's why I think they really need to divide the top bracket up into more divisions. $250,000 is, as you mentioned, upper middle class in some places - but earning a million in income every year is pretty much rich virtually everywhere in the United States except in certain communities where the standard is ridiculously high because everyone else is richer.

Absolutely. Really just pointing out another contrasting example.

I realize though, that for every area like Long Island or the SanFran Bay Area, there's a dozen like the research triangle in North Carolina, where houses are a third of what they are up here.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Scientists seem to uniformly support Obama, but sadly frothing anonymous no-education science bloggers on the Internet, not so much, and criticize scientists for their ideological impurity (check comments section).

[ray245]

Scientists seem to uniformly support Obama, but sadly frothing anonymous no-education science bloggers on the Internet, not so much, and criticize scientists for their ideological impurity (check comments section).

Seriously, why do people still believe that global warming is not man-made? I mean come on, just because you are taught to be critical does not mean you should never give in to a good argument or data.

As compared to the rest of the world, the US seems to be the country where there is TONS of people who actually believe that man played no role in global warming.

[Durandal]

David Frum seems to think that McCain is a lost cause and that the Republicans should try salvaging what they can. And from what I've read in other places, the McCain campaign is going to disintegrate into a snake pit on 4 November. A lot of advisers are standing ready to lay the blame squarely on Sarah Palin. Palin's camp will probably say that God punished McCain for not being Christian enough. And I think it's clear at this point that Palin has aspirations of becoming a national-level leader for the religious conservative movement.

That aspiration is kind of like jumping into the king's throne after the castle has been breached. Palin's about 8 years late to the party. McCain's loss is going to really shake things up in the Republican party, and the fiscal conservatives are either going to move to the Democratic party or start trying to turn the Libertarian party into something viable. Either way, the religious conservatives won't be able to ride Barry Goldwater's conservative coattails to get national credibility after that. They'll pretty much come off as a group of kooks and lunatics they are, and their influence will diminish somewhat.

Of course, now that the Republicans have finally seen the writing on the wall, they're actually starting to warn us about the dangers of a government run by a single party, unchecked by the opposition in any real way. If hypocrisy were an audible tone, this would make my ears bleed. And the sad part is that I can almost buy that argument. I don't think it's particularly healthy for one party to hold sway over all branches of government, and it's because of what happened when the Republicans had total control for 6 years. (You could argue that the Democrats' incompetence in the last 2 years had effectively given us another 2 years of complete Republican control, as well.)

But frankly, as an opposition party, the Republicans have nothing to contribute. They've got mudslinging, the word "socialist" and the belief that if they say Ronald Reagan's name enough times, he'll turn out to be a messiah who'll come back and lead their party to glorious, white, Christian victory. The Republican party is a cabal of backstabbers, hypocrites and bigots all held together by shaky alliances. They take the worst aspects of American culture -- religious bigots, racists, neo-cons and worshippers of the All Might Invisible Hand -- and put them all under one tent. What possible contribution can these people make to a government controlled by the Democrats?

For all its flaws, the Democratic party seems to have gotten its act together and unified behind a message of national unity, cooperation and strengthening the middle class. Those ideals do not need to be "tempered" by an opposition party, especially one as disgusting and vile as the Republican party.

[SirNitram]

Smell that desperation! Link

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Pennsylvania Republicans are disavowing an e-mail sent to Jewish voters that likens a vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to events that led up to the Holocaust.

"Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008," the e-mail reads. "Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let's not make a similar one this year!"

A copy of the e-mail, provided by Democratic officials, says it was "Paid for by the Republican Federal Committee of PA - Victory 2008."

It warns "Fellow Jewish Voters" of the danger of a second Holocaust due to the threats to Israel from its neighbors and touts Republican presidential candidate John McCain's qualifications over those of Obama.

State GOP officials disavowed the e-mail and said the strategist who helped draft it had been fired.

"The Republican Party of Pennsylvania did not authorize that e-mail," Michael Barley, communications director for the state party, told The Associated Press on Saturday evening.

Barley said a "correction" would be sent out to everyone who received it.

The e-mail was sent Thursday morning to 75,000 Jewish voters.

The McCain campaign also repudiated the e-mail. Spokesman Peter Feldman said Saturday night that McCain "rejects politics that degrade our civics."

Political consultant Bryan Rudnick was identified as the person responsible for it. Rudnick, reached Saturday night, confirmed that he no longer works for the party, which employed him a few weeks ago as a consultant to do outreach to Jewish voters.

"I had authorization from party officials" to send the e-mail, Rudnick said, but he declined to say who had signed off on it. "I'm not looking to drag anyone else through the mud, so I'm not naming names right now," he said.

The e-mail also accuses Obama of teaching members of the community group ACORN "to commit voter registration fraud" during his years as a community activist.

Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., said the e-mail was part of a "smear campaign" that was among the worst he had seen in his state.

Obama As POTUS = PRESIDENT! Yea, sure that wasn't authorized.

[Darth Raptor]

What possible contribution can these people make to a government controlled by the Democrats?

Keeping us honest? The Republican propensity for making shit up to slander their opponents suggests that they *should* be all over any real, serious corruption like white on, well, the Republican Party. Corruption and abuses of power are the biggest issues with a hypothetical Democratic monopoly. The Democratic platform might not need tempered by conservative ideology, but individual Democrats might need to be tempered by conservative viciousness.

Meh, that's the best I could come up with.