CardinalBacker

Tax revenues did NOT double. That is patently untrue. Can tou point me to a source? What window of time are you looking at?

Oh, sorry... I won't vote Harris, and I'm fairly certain I won't vote Trump, either. Honestly, though... I never thought I'd see a time where the Democrat plan would add less to the debt than the Republican plan. From Fox Business. [Hidden Content] CNBC wasn't as nice to Trump. [Hidden Content] And I'd say "oh, it's just the media lying again," but deficits and the debt EXPLODED under Trump last time.... even pre-pandemic. You can hate the messenger, but it won't change the facts. Trump's plans are terrible for our future.

WH has a very limited number of athletes that turn out to play football, even for a school of their size. All it takes is a couple of injuries sustained during a meaningless game against a bigger opponent, with bigger kids, etc, and their season could be over. Last year, if I'm not mistaken, there were literally freshmen playing both ways on varsity by the end of the year. Personally I wouldn't take the game just for the sake of playing.

Ok, I'll address your previous post. No, but he's the first rich guy who ever boasted about paying no income taxes and that it made him "smart," then ran for President (while refusing to disclose his tax returns) and then gave big fat tax cuts to his rich friends who couldn't get out of paying taxes like he did. Mix in a tsunami of deficit spending, and it really makes one wonder why he has the undying support of so-called "conservatives." He did more to ruin our kids' and grandkids' futures with his tax cuts and spending.... and y'all want more of the same. It's baffling. But like I said... if it were up to you, poor people would pay more, rich people would pay less, and the Chinese can just take it up with our grandkids. How very boomer of you. It's the same selfish behavior that destroyed America and her future.

But you DO realize that the democrat agenda has been WAAAAAY less harmful to America's future than Trump's term in office, right?

Are you going to vote for trump again in 2028?

Because you apparently are a welfare queen, too. Or at least you aspire to be one.

[Hidden Content] Musk destroyed Twitter, losing billions of his own dollars and the fortunes of his poor investors. It's not the success story you think it is.

I don’t hate rich people.. I just can’t stand the ones who brag about paying no taxes while the rest of us have no choice. And y’all send that dude money to help him get re-elected. Your hero, I guess.

Neither is 36 Trillion dollars of debt… and y’all are clamoring for the guy who saddled us with more than 43 of 46 Presidents. You can’t be a “cut taxes, but we still want our handouts” kind of stupid. Or you shouldn’t be.

John Kennedy said a lot of things. I take it that you're in favor of paying higher taxes yourself so that rich people can pay less. Noted.

“Fair” is where you go to eat a corndog and kiss a pig.

I think Jesus was plainly teaching that the poor woman’s two mites represented a more substantial sacrifice than a larger gift by a wealthy person. Why should our tax system cause a huge sacrifice for the poor, but a mere inconvenience for the most fortunate of us? I’m in favor of a progressive tax system, but never imagined a place where giving 40% of the top dollars earned would be considered “not paying their fair share.” But bringing that rate down while raising rates on the poor is just wrong, period.

So why did Jesus tell us the story of the widow with the two mites?

If you ever get to the point where you realize that both parties’ economic policies are badly flawed, it’ll start to make a lot more sense.

That’s the point. You worship a draft/tax dodger like trump who brags about paying no taxes, then he instituted tax cuts for the wealthy (when they do actually pay taxes) and exploded our debt and caused this massive inflation… and you’re happy? Why did George Bush have to raise taxes in 1989? Because Reagan’s tax cuts were killing us. The fact they “conservatives” will argue against their own interests on behalf of rich people is the most sheeple thing I’ve ever seen.

You’re arguing for free steaks for the rich in hopes they leave some meat on the bones that you can dig out of their trash.

We have that. The kid working at the grocery store for minimum wage pays the exact same rate (10%) that I do on the $11,000 dollars of taxable income that he makes. As I continued to earn more money, it’s taxed at a higher rate. And that’s morally and ethically right. To whom much is given, much is required. Rich guys like Steve Forbes preached for a flat tax… being “simpler and more fair” and simple minded poor people were like “yeah! That makes sense!” If you have a single person making 25k a year now, after exemptions they pay practically nothing… they have the entire $25k to spend as they want-and it’s barely enough to survive. On the other hand you have a rich guy making 400k a year and paying roughly $120k in taxes at the current effective rate. So we institute your “fair” flat tax of 15%. The first guy making $25k has to carve $3250 out of his already miserable budget- and the guy making $400k gets to hang onto an extra $60k to take a few more vacations. Sound fair to you?

But when guy like DJT take out a $320 million dollar loan from Deutsch bank and fly around in a gold plated jet while paying zero income taxes like you and I have to…. Something is bad wrong. Especially when broke tax payers like you argue for even better tax breaks for the wealthy.

Right… I just think the scale is tipped. You can’t have a system where most pay nothing and some pay most. A progressive tax system like ours is the right framework, but I think it’s wrong to have people paying 40%+ in some states on their top dollars when over half contribute nothing, or even worse get gifts from the treasury.

Somebody has to support the freeloaders like you.

So your plan is to tax the poor and cut taxes on the rich?

I believe in a progressive tax system. Higher earners paying more than smaller earners. The problem(s) as I see it are that over half of us contribute nothing (or better yet, get a gift from the treasury called “earned income credit”) while the other half are chided for “not paying their fair share” while their top tax rate is 35%. The system is off kilter. 1. Everybody should pay something. No one should be receiving money from the government in the form of unrealized tax refunds. You should collect back no more than you paid in…. Period. 2. Unrealized gains should be taxed IF they are used as collateral for a loan. Rich guys (CEOs, etc) receive generous amounts of their compensation in the form of stocks. They don’t pay taxes on them because the gains aren’t locked in until the stocks are sold. They turn around and take out huge loans against the stocks/assets that they received as compensation. They use the proceeds of these loans to create lavish lifestyles, tax free. In fact, the interest that they spend on these loans is tax deductible, lol. When they do eventually sell their assets, the proceeds of the sale is taxed at the capital gains rate, which is much lower than they’d pay on actual income. It’s an easy loophole to close.

I actually looked into Trump’s theory on deficit spending. It was enlightening, but faulty. Let’s say I buy a highrise for a billion. I lie about its value so I can borrow the entire billion. I pay a mortgage on the place, but it’s basically an interest-only mortgage. Meaning that I don’t tackle the principal at all… or even if I am paying on the principal, it doesn’t matter because that asset (the building) will appreciate in value. When I get ready to sell the thing, it’ll be worth more than the billion that I paid initially. My only cost to own the building was the interest paid on the loan… and it was offset by rents collected. It makes sense. But he applied the same theory to the govts spending/borrowing. The only cost to borrow is the cost of the interest due on the loans… and the govt borrows at unbelievably cheap rates compared to what orgs like Trump has to pay in the open market. Why wouldn’t we just borrow? Because we don’t own anything. There is no asset to sell, and the “rents” coming in (by way of taxes) won’t cover the amount of interest that’s being charged by foreign lenders. At some point we’ll have to start selling off federal assets to investors (probabky foreign) to pay on our debts, while our two parties bicker about who should be getting more generous gifts from the treasury… Party D or Party R.

A nation can’t borrow its way into prosperity, either. The problem is this… we have a debt now that is probably insurmountable. It must be paid back. We’re not even trying, we’re just borrowing more-and nobody wants to have tough conversations because it will anger their voting base. You can’t cut taxes and create enough economic growth to pay back 36 trillion in debt… especially considering that we’re borrowing 1 out of every 3 federal dollars being spent annually. “Tax cuts! So you can keep your money!!” is a lie told for votes, period. We can’t keep it up. Because…. We’re taking in 4 trillion or so in annual tax revenue in the US. But we’re spending 6.5 trillion (borrowing 2.5). And the solution is “let’s take in less in taxes, and hopefully the government economy will grow enough to offset that loss of revenue, then some!” It hasn’t worked, doesn’t work, and never will work. For every Reagan, there has to be an HW Bush who has to be a grownup and bail us out of our childish mess created by tax cuts without spending cuts by raising taxes.