Amaros
Posts: 1363
Joined: 7/25/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyEllen
Hi Ken - please excuse my ignorance OK? I dont have much idea of your system except what I see on US TV shows! Still it seems from this side of the water that you have it pretty good by comparison with us.
Generally, I am suspicious of any new tax designed to produce an effect to the common good, unless it is specificially ringfenced to go towards its purpose, and it replaces something else rather than being an additional burden. All too often in the UK we have had this sort of new tax imposed, the funds have been used for something else, the problem remains and we still have to pay all the other taxes too.
E
The problem is, that SCOTUS has determined that a "tax is a tax", no matter what you call it, so Congress can spend payroll taxes, designated to mandatory programs like Medicaid and SS, for whatever they want, including tax cuts.
It appears the pubs are trying to raise payroll taxes while getting rid of SS, and cutting income taxes, effectively slipping a flat tax through the back door.
There are two budgets and two sources of taxes: general revenues, which are primarily income taxes, along with corporate taxes, capital gains, fees, etc., and payroll taxes, which are roughly the same amount dollarwise.
Combined, they're called the "unified budget", and combined revenues called "total" revenues. But pol's use whichever metric suits them at the time - for instance when the unified budget was balanced, and surplusses announced, that surplus was not in general revenues, income taxes, but in payroll taxes - pubs immediately announced that the wealthy were paying too many taxes - else why the surplus? At the same time, they also cited the figure of taxation at 20% of GDP, which they claimed was another sign that income taxes were too high.
Problem is, that 20% figure was for total revenues, the general budget - income taxes and discretionary spending, were balanced, i.e., there was no surplus of income tax, in fact it was the first time in almost thirty years that the general budget wasn't running a deficit - the surplus was always in payroll taxes, which the top decile of taxpayers who got the biggest cuts, mostly doesn't pay.
Between tax cuts and running up the debt, it amounts to a huge upward redistribution of wealth, while running the economy on the edge of recession - as mortgage defaults grow, the top 1/2 of 1% who are the real benefactors of all this can snap up even more wealth (physical property, as opposed to income) by buying up real estate at a fraction of their value - with the middle classes own retirement fund!
Even slicker than the S&L scam, running S&L's into bankrupcy making bad loans to freinds, and buying idle real estate (at that time), financing it through individual investors whom they were telling these real estate deals were a good investment (but only in the long term - the very long term) - then when they went bankrupt, the Fed bailed them out and the S&L's themselves, and their assets were sold to the same people at pennies on the dollar.
Neal Bush was in on that, fronting for the Texas cabal - the Clintons were into it up to their ankles (Whitewater), while the Bushes were in over their eyeballs - that's why the Whitewater investigation morphed into the blowjob investigation.
This bullshit goes on because people listen to the pol's and their shills demogaguic yap, instead of taking a few hours to look up the data and figure out what's really going on.
What was the thing I said above? There's a sucker born every minute.
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RE: Eliminate Payroll Taxes!!! - 
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