Kerry Will Raise Your Taxes

I know that there are many issues upon which people decide their vote. However, it is a very good bet that if Kerry were elected president (which he will not be) that he would indeed raise the taxes of every working man and woman in America.

This thread is not to argue the above, but to assume that it is a strong possibility.

If you were sure that this would indeed happen, would you still vote for John Kerry? If so why?

Taxes have always been a key issue with me. Like many of you, I work hard and enjoy a good standard of living. I think that people like me (and you) should be able to keep more of their gross income, not less.

I would like this thread to be a discussion about why (if you are a Kerry supporter) a higher tax rate does not bother you. I would love to hear some good arguments for higher taxes, convert me!

All serious contributors are welcome.

C’mon Zeb -

It’s not a tax increase. He’s just doing away with the evil Bush tax cuts that put so much money in the pockets of already rich people.

On a similar note - I read a column in the WSJ that was saying that, since it will be very hard to get tax increases passed, the liberals have found a new avenue by which to redistribute wealth - class action law suits.

Yeah Edwards!!!

?Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,? Sen. Clinton said. ?We?re saying that for America to get back on track, we?re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We?re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.?

This seems to be what democrats believe in.

The raising the taxes thing doesn’t bother me as much as his approach to it.

“We’re going to repeal the Bush Tax Cut.”

Look at the way that is phrased. Kerry, and other Democrats, act like it’s the government’s money first and that Bush stole it away from Washington and gave it back. It’s disgusting the way they approach it. They honestly believe that government has the first right to that money and that they bless you by letting you keep some of it.

Just go out and have a conversation with any liberal and you’ll get that same response. They view the government as owning everything. I’m sorry, but that type of attitude doesn’t make us the masters of the government, it makes us their servants.

[quote]rainjack wrote:
On a similar note - I read a column in the WSJ that was saying that, since it will be very hard to get tax increases passed, the liberals have found a new avenue by which to redistribute wealth - class action law suits.
[/quote]

Class action lawsuits are generally useless in terms of putting money in the pockets of the people who have actually been wronged. And yes, there are instances where people have actually been screwed over and deserve compensation. Comments like this are always amusing - people complain about lawyers and lawsuits until one day they actually get screwed over by some dishonest asshole. Then they come running for help.

As for the tax thing, I don’t understand why people put their trust in government. I knew people who actually wanted to contribute to Social Security to fund their retirement as opposed to keeping the money themselves and investing it. These people had their own businesses, and if you do have your own business, there is a way to take out a portion (not all) of your earnings to avoid Social Security taxes. But they refused to take advantage of this.

Well let me see, all of the congressmen and Senators vote themselves raises. While at the same time cutting spending on education, mediacare, etc., and blaming it on Bush’s tax cuts. They don’t participate in a 401k, social security, or many of the taxes we see coming out of our paychecks. They make enough money, that they write off tons of expenses to avoid paying any taxes what so ever. And so Kerry says he will raise the taxes on himself and of all the other Congressmen and Senators? Come on now, look at his entire flip flopping carreer! He says what he needs to at the time. If he is elected, he will do the opposite of what ever he says he stands for. Therefor he will not raise the tax on the rich(exactly what is rich be his standards anyway…HEINZ Corp?)but on us blue collar working class that is just getting by right now previding shelter and food for our families.

I’m not sure if Kerry would improve the standard of living for people who are just working to get by, but Bush definitely hasn’t helped them. I know people got their little chump change tax cut (more if you have kids), but you need to look at what will be happening to your tax burden within the next 10 years not just now.

I really think the corporations need to be shelling out more taxes personally. They are profiting off of America and they need to pay their fair share of tax to support it. With all the loopholes available, corporations are not caring their fair share of the load.

As for why I wouldn’t be against a tax raise. I guess there are a couple reasons. 1. I hate to see the national debt skyrocketing upward. I don’t live on credit and I don’t believe our goverment should. I know this can be solved by budget cuts also, but where should they be. We are still underfunding things as important as schools, so it must not be that easy to cut much more out. 2. I realize how good America is to me. And I realize not everyone is getting out of it what I have. I want schools to be great for the poorest children as well, so they will one day be able to break out of that cycle. I want children of poor families to have adequate food, shelter, and healthcare.

Also, on a side note. I don’t believe in giving people a free ride, but I also believe that with the price of housing and the cost of living in general today that many people don’t earn a living wage and this needs to be corrected. It is not right for someone who is willing to bust their ass and work to not be able to earn a decent living. On the other hand I have no sympathy for the lazy (if you aren’t willing to work, I’m not willing to help).

Something needs to change.

The issues of taxes bothers me less than uncontrolled spending. If reckless spending continues to spiral and deficits continue to soar to pay for it, I’d be just as discontent as if taxes were raised to pay for the spending.

Tax cuts are great, but they mean little if the government continues to have no discipline in spending public money. We’ll either pay for it now or pay for it later.

When we first created a surplus, my first choice would have been to retire as much debt as possible, tax cut second.

As for Kerry’s proposals, I think he offers a two-headed monster - expanded spending and raising taxes to cover the deficit and the new expenditures.

Will he get some traction? I hope not, but the recent GOP shenanigans and Bush’s rubber stamp has given Kerry ammo.

This is what angers me about the Republican Party’s most recent drunken binge with public money - they set the Democrats up perfectly to pretend to be fiscal conservatives (balanced budget, saving money on devt servicing, etc.).

oubigguy,

You are free to take your extra money and give it directly to schools or “the working poor” or any other cause you choose. You don’t have to wait for the government to decide to take it from you.

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
Class action lawsuits are generally useless in terms of putting money in the pockets of the people who have actually been wronged…[/quote]

Wealth redistribution has little, if any, to do with getting money to those who need it - it’s about taking it away from those who have earned it.

When Florida, et al sued the tobacco companies - the states all said that they were going to use the cash to defray the medical costs of treating smokers. I think the money got lost in the treasury somewhere - but the tobacco companies paid it.

If I’m not mistaken - there were even lawsuits against plaintiff lawyers to force them to cough up some of their percentage as well.

[quote]oubigguy wrote:
I’m not sure if Kerry would improve the standard of living for people who are just working to get by, but Bush definitely hasn’t helped them. I know people got their little chump change tax cut (more if you have kids), but you need to look at what will be happening to your tax burden within the next 10 years not just now.

I really think the corporations need to be shelling out more taxes personally. They are profiting off of America and they need to pay their fair share of tax to support it. With all the loopholes available, corporations are not caring their fair share of the load.

As for why I wouldn’t be against a tax raise. I guess there are a couple reasons. 1. I hate to see the national debt skyrocketing upward. I don’t live on credit and I don’t believe our goverment should. I know this can be solved by budget cuts also, but where should they be. We are still underfunding things as important as schools, so it must not be that easy to cut much more out. 2. I realize how good America is to me. And I realize not everyone is getting out of it what I have. I want schools to be great for the poorest children as well, so they will one day be able to break out of that cycle. I want children of poor families to have adequate food, shelter, and healthcare.

Also, on a side note. I don’t believe in giving people a free ride, but I also believe that with the price of housing and the cost of living in general today that many people don’t earn a living wage and this needs to be corrected. It is not right for someone who is willing to bust their ass and work to not be able to earn a decent living. On the other hand I have no sympathy for the lazy (if you aren’t willing to work, I’m not willing to help).

Something needs to change.[/quote]

OU:

Two small points. Firstly, “corporations” don’t care how much they pay in taxes – their shareholders, however, care a great deal, because they own the companies and make (or lose) money based on the profitability of the companies, via either dividends or capital gains. Personally, I don’t think corporations should pay any taxes, or that the combined corporate tax on profits and either capital gains or dividends should not exceed the maximum individual rate. The government always takes two bites at the corporate profit apple.

BTW, don’t forget all the taxes that employers pay in terms of social security, medicare etc. While one could argue that such taxes are just deducted from the wages the companies would otherwise pay their employees, it seems there is not an exact correlation.

To put it another way, corporations, and their shareholders, pay quite a bit of taxes.

Second point: If I were to agree with you, which I generally do, that government shouldn’t be living on credit, why not cut its spending? Since you like the analogy to yourself, if you were in debt, would you keep spending at high levels or would you look to reduce the amount you spent on worthless crap, which, in the case of our government, is farm subsidies, ethanol subsidies and various other pet pork projects for congressmen who sit on budget committees.

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
…If I were to agree with you, which I generally do, that government shouldn’t be living on credit, why not cut its spending? Since you like the analogy to yourself, if you were in debt, would you keep spending at high levels or would you look to reduce the amount you spent on worthless crap, which, in the case of our government, is farm subsidies, ethanol subsidies and various other pet pork projects for congressmen who sit on budget committees.[/quote]

I would agree with you that the Gov’t is top heavy on mindless spending right now but, Alexander Hamilton felt it was actually good for a nation to always have some debt.

Farm subsidies are every bit the entitlement that Welfare, and Social Security are.

While I agree that it is indeed needless pork-spending, we will always have farm programs, as we will always have the ghosts of the Great Society.

[quote]doogie wrote:
oubigguy,

You are free to take your extra money and give it directly to schools or “the working poor” or any other cause you choose. You don’t have to wait for the government to decide to take it from you.[/quote]

That is true. I am free to give and so is everyone else. However, this doesn’t currently seem to be working, does it?

[quote]rainjack wrote:

I would agree with you that the Gov’t is top heavy on mindless spending right now but, Alexander Hamilton felt it was actually good for a nation to always have some debt.

[/quote]

rainjack:

I agree, which is why I put the lawyerly caveat “generally”. =-) Actually, I had in mind necessary spending for defense/war, or economic stimulus (aka tax cuts or focused spending) in times of economic recession.

The answer is not in raising taxes. The answer lies in shrinking government.

If there is less government there will then be less money needed to fuel the beast.

I think at the heart of this whole tax debate are two conflicting philosophies. One side thinks that government needs to be powerful. Sort of a mother hen taking care of all who seem to be in need. The other side thinks that people should be more responsible for themselves.

The mother hens want to expand government in order to encompass more people. They are the ones screaming for a national health care system (cough). Those who feel that people should be responsible for themselves think that money is best left in the hands of the people who earned it.

Currently 1 in 5 families are receiving some sort of governmental aid. At what point do the mother hens feel that enough is enough?

If I agreed with Kerry on every other issue (which I do not) I would still be against him based upon his stand on taxes. He simply has not right to take more of our money!

[quote]ZEB wrote:

The answer is not in raising taxes. The answer lies in shrinking government.

If there is less government there will then be less money needed to fuel the beast.

I think at the heart of this whole tax debate are two conflicting philosophies. One side thinks that government needs to be powerful. Sort of a mother hen taking care of all who seem to be in need. The other side thinks that people should be more responsible for themselves.

The mother hens want to expand government in order to encompass more people. They are the ones screaming for a national health care system (cough). Those who feel that people should be responsible for themselves think that money is best left in the hands of the people who earned it.

Currently 1 in 5 families are receiving some sort of governmental aid. At what point do the mother hens feel that enough is enough?

If I agreed with Kerry on every other issue (which I do not) I would still be against him based upon his stand on taxes. He simply has not right to take more of our money![/quote]

Old political philosophy teaches us that America is financially run like a family. Daddy, the republican party, keeps Mommy, the democratic party, from spending all the money. However, such a philsophy is no longer relevant. Bush has combined tax cuts with lots and lots of spending, reminiscient of Reagan. The difference is, whereas Reagan’s success came at a time when his ideological presence was needed, Bush is trying to make his policies as ideological as possible without pragmatic intentions. Hence a national debt that is approaching 5% of the GDP, and is making our foreign creditors a bit anxious. Not to mention the next generation will have a ton of social security to pay, and the spending binges of the gov’t haven’t exactly been helping that.

The President does not have the power of the purse. Though he can ask for tax cuts, which dubya has done and got through the lame-duck house that does whatever he wants them to do, I’m skeptical that Kerry will be met with similar success. The House approves the budget and writes the checks, if you don’t want your taxes raised, contact your local representative.

How about this "l"ibertarian proposal:

Legalize prostitution. Tax it. This will provide an increased tax base while reducing the cost of prosecuting and incarcerating the offenders.

i like the idea of legalizing prostitution. but then again how funny it would be to be able to right it off as stress therapy. and then get caught by the wife.

as far as kerry raising taxes- i would think he needs to because of all the spending going on now. working with what there is now (no legalizations of anything else, nor making anything else illegal than what already is) the only way to make back what is lost, through the war on drugs and war on the US developed foreign regimes, is to raise taxes. i wouldn’t be suprised if he allowed the seizure of property or belongings of those who are back paid in federal college loans. i know i support such an idea here in Hawai’i where hundreds of “bling-bling” wearing college students haven’t even paid their loans yet. there was a report on that happening here a year back. some of these graduates totally forgot they had undergrad loans, while at the financial aid office getting their FAFSA app for grad school lol.

but back to taxes- it sucks beeg cack, but just with what there is now, it’s the only way to make any money back.

if looking at this “war” from profit POV, there hasn’t been a damn thing. my money, your money, is being dumped somewhere.

collect my taxes, just don’t sissy-fy my gym.

The current administration are the biggest spenders in US history. George W. Bush has not vetoed one single spending bill, as president. That’s a first in our history!!!

We are currently runnng up trillions of dollars in debt, in order to give a tax cut to people like Donald Trump and Bill Gates. That is idiotic.

Kerry will maintain the Bush tax cuts fot the middle class, and only raise taxes on the very wealthy.

The fact is that sooner or later we will HAVE to raise taxes in order to reduce the huge deficits Bush is running up. Bush has created a huge mess with this deficit, that he will leave for someone else to clean up. The richest Americans will be asked to help pay down the debt, under Kerry.

How would the GOP propose reducing the deficits? By cutting programs? Fine, just tell everyone which programs you plan to cut, BEFORE the elections. I double-dare you!!!

Does anyone realistically expect Bush to suddenly becaome fiscally conservative, after four years in office? Nothing will change under four more years of Bush, he will continue to spend recklessly, and the deficits will continue to go up.

Tax cuts for the middle class is where Kerry differed with Dean (and probably a big reason why Dean didn’t get very far). Dean wanted to repeal the Bush tax cuts completely. Kerry would maintain the tax cuts for those in the middle and at the bottom, but raise taxes on those at the very top… those people making more than a quarter of a million dollars and up. If you aren’t a millionaire, you need not worry about your taxes going up. If you are a millionaire, you never really needed the tax break in the first place… certainly not more than we need spending for schools, police, homeland security, and so on.

Since bodybuilding is generally a rich man’s sport, I can understand why that makes some of the Bushies on this forum unhappy. Their taxes will possibly go up a couple thousand bucks, if they are very wealthy. That’s really just chump change to them, but the way they cry like babies, you’d think a few thousand was the end of the world. All of a sudden ‘we’re becoming Socialists’, and that kind of crap. Supposedly a good way to become rich is to be really cheap, and never spend any money. Maybe that explains the mentality there.

If the richest people in America don’t want to pay their fair share in taxes, to hell with them. Move to the Bahamas if you don’t like it. If you are mega rich, but you can’t help pitch in and support this country, then you are a traitor.

Bush and Cheney are like the Reverse Robin Hoods… they take from the poor, and give to the rich. Their campaign slogan this year should be “Let Them Eat Cake”.

Provide Tax Relief to Middle Class Families

“John Kerry has the courage to take on the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. However, he believes that we should keep the middle class tax cuts that Democrats fought for in 2001 and 2003. Specifically, he wants to protect the increases in the child tax credit, the reduced marriage penalty and the new tax bracket that helps people save $350 on their first level of income. He strongly disagrees with Democrats who want to repeal these tax cuts because it would cost a typical middle-class family with two children an additional $2,000. These families are often already struggling with higher health care costs and higher state and local taxes. In fact, John Kerry wants to give more tax breaks to the middle class with new tax credits on health care and college tuition. These tax cuts are part of his plan to restore the economy and cut the budget deficit in half in four years.”

Try looking at http://www.JohnKerry.com/issues/ for your information on Kerry’s policies, instead of just taking Rush Limbaugh’s word on it.