GO VOTE!

[sperry]

Originally Posted by A1337STI

One would think Trump might actually be good for businesses , and at least the stock analysts would love it and stocks would go up. If he took running the country as a business (and wasn't just concerned with boosting the profits of all his companies) things could go really well. like raising taxes on the rich , reducing out idiotic over spending , etc ,etc,

More likely he would just spend 4 years setting up the country so his businesses would be more profitable though ...

Obama has literally out spent every other president combined, (when looking at our new health care cost commitments) at a time that revenue is declining. I want Clinton back , Bush sucked really bad, and Obama sucks too (though less) but Clinton actually balanced a budget and made a Debt payment, not just interest payments .

Anyone else aware that the US got denied credit for the first time in history??? that's epically bad news our creditor later approved that request, but really the only thing that keeps us having everything "normal" is china continues to loan us money. that has to stop, we need a real leader who will make that stop by cutting spending (well fair and health care please, social security too, end the wars unless we actually steal oil to pay for them) raise taxes on the rich back to Clinton levels .


but we won't because we are stupid, lazy and feel entitled. eventually when our credit runs out, then and only then will we cut things, only because there is no other option.

boo

F U China!

Clinton seemed good because the economy was booming. The problem is... the economy wasn't really booming... it was bubbling. The tech bubble is what balanced the budget. When that bubble burst, all those folks rolled the money they had made into real estate, which is basically why real estate became so over-valued, triggering the housing bubble, and why we're in the mess we're in now.

So really, you could in fact blame our current mess on the Clinton administration for not regulating the market in the 90's in order to slow growth and prevent bubbles.

Trump on the other hand is actually not a great business man. He's lost tons and tons of cash over the years. The only reason he was ever successful is because he started with a bunch of inherited money. I too could be a millionaire if I was born that way. It's not that hard to make money when you've already got plenty. Trump would turn our nation into a shitty reality TV show... as if the Bush era didn't already make us an international joke enough.

Also, Trump wouldn't raise taxes. Republicans can't or won't face the facts that trickle-down doesn't work. They've backed themselves into a corner with all their rhetoric about how it's somehow taxes that caused all our economic problems, and now they can't even consider revenue solutions to the economic issues without being hypocrites.

Meanwhile, I think just about everyone else knows that we cannot cut spending on the order necessary to balance the budget. It's time to raise taxes... especially on the people that can afford it. Personally, I'm offended by rich folks that have their success by and large due to the favoritism afforded to them by lax gov't economic regulations who, now that the tide has turned, refuse to suck it up and pay higher taxes in order to get the economy back on track. I'm not rich, but I can afford to pay a little more if that's what it takes to turn things around.... so I know for sure that someone making 100 times as much as I do should be able to STFU and pay an extra 5%-10% more in taxes for then next 4 years.

I think Obama's continued support of bail-out type spending and insistence on tip-toeing around the idea of raising taxes in order not to offend conservative voters is a mistake. It's prolonging the economic recovery. It's about time we pull the band-aid off quickly. The sooner we stop spending money on recovery projects and just let those that are broke be broke, and the sooner we raise revenue and balance the budget, the sooner things will turn around and jobs will be created, etc. Yes, raising taxes sucks... it slows growth... but not as much as bankruptcy slows growth... and we've got to stop passing the debt around and around. It's time for everyone to suck it up and pay the piper.

[Kevin M]

Originally Posted by Nick Koan

I support this. There will be epic Daily Show's every day during the 2012 elections.

This. Just having Trump in a primary will have me pushing TDS back to the top of my DVR queue. Especially since his opponents will be Palin, Gingrich, Romney and the corpse of Dick Cheney.

Maybe we'll get lucky and somebody will convince Michelle Bachmann to run too.

[A1337STI]

Originally Posted by sperry

Meanwhile, I think just about everyone else knows that we cannot cut spending on the order necessary to balance the budget. It's time to raise taxes... especially on the people that can afford it. Personally, I'm offended by rich folks that have their success by and large due to the favoritism afforded to them by lax gov't economic regulations who, now that the tide has turned, refuse to suck it up and pay higher taxes in order to get the economy back on track. I'm not rich, but I can afford to pay a little more if that's what it takes to turn things around.... so I know for sure that someone making 100 times as much as I do should be able to STFU and pay an extra 5%-10% more in taxes for then next 4 years.

I think Obama's continued support of bail-out type spending and insistence on tip-toeing around the idea of raising taxes in order not to offend conservative voters is a mistake. It's prolonging the economic recovery. It's about time we pull the band-aid off quickly. The sooner we stop spending money on recovery projects and just let those that are broke be broke, and the sooner we raise revenue and balance the budget, the sooner things will turn around and jobs will be created, etc. Yes, raising taxes sucks... it slows growth... but not as much as bankruptcy slows growth... and we've got to stop passing the debt around and around. It's time for everyone to suck it up and pay the piper.

Definitely agree with that.

One line i hate is when the affluent and rich say that a raise of taxes will take away their incentive to product, keeping 74% of what they earn they have all sorts of motivation to make money, but change that to 70% and all of a sudden they have no motivation to make money.. such a BS line ..

If you raise my taxes, and i'm really loving my current life style, that's a huge incentive for me to earn more money to continue to live how i was...


Ya Clinton definitely needed to enact more regulation (or not let it slip?) I still give him some credit it would have been easy for him to try and just spend all of the surplus but he actually did make a debt payment. he was in office for 8 years too, while the president isn't that in control of the economy i think he has to get some positive credit

[Dean]

Part of the real problem is the ridiculous notion of discretionary on non-discretionary budget.

You want real change it has to be on the "non-discretionary" side. The "discretionary" side is the minority.

Cut Military spending by 25% and fix medicare by 10% and I bet you could make a huge dent in the deficit if not eliminate it in 10-20 years without even discussing social security.

Let's let the Chinese police the world at their expense for a while and see what it does to their economy.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Dean

Part of the real problem is the ridiculous notion of discretionary on non-discretionary budget.

You want real change it has to be on the "non-discretionary" side. The "discretionary" side is the minority.

Cut Military spending by 25% and fix medicare by 10% and I bet you could make a huge dent in the deficit if not eliminate it in 10-20 years without even discussing social security.

Let's let the Chinese police the world at their expense for a while and see what it does to their economy.

Keep in mind, we don't police the world out of some moral imperative. We do it because if we don't, we'll lose access to the cheap oil upon which our economy is based. A lot of good a 25% reduction in military expenses is if everything else in the nation suddenly costs 150% more because of an oil shortage.

We can cut military spending back once we're energy self-sufficient. It's a shame we are where we are, having to use military force to protect the price of oil, because it is so morally suspect. But there's no sense in pretending it's not true. Perhaps if we admit it, we can get people to think more seriously about pushing renewable energy.

[dknv]

Originally Posted by sperry

Trump on the other hand is actually not a great business man. He's lost tons and tons of cash over the years.

I agree with this. At least when he was a partner with Harrah's in Atlantic City in 1984 (who I worked for at the time), he appeared to be demanding and immature with his expectations, and he also appeared to want things for visibility as opposed to long-term investment. That is a scary prospect for a president.

[Bajozzy]

Corruption, waste and out of control spending.

15% flat tax on everybody, no loopholes.

Secure the border and quit supporting illegals.

Get the welfare under control and qiut giving away our money to to help other countries.

Drill , Drill Drill baby Drill.

Reign in the lawyers, pull the perks from congress and gov't managers. Make congress live by the same rules as ordinary Joe.

Term limits for all politicians.

Grow a sack . Quit lying every time you speak and care about more than your next re-election.

Reform campaign finance so taxpayer $$ given to orginizations and unions can't be funneled back to the politicians campaign fund.

Raising taxes on the wealthy needs to come only after the gov't reigns in spending, vat tax could then be looked at as well.

I think its game over if O man gets re-elected, the dollar will collapse and the muslims will be knocking at our door to "save us".. Wake up America before its too late.

Can the czars and use the cabinet, I could go on but our leaders better change their priorities, the greed is unbelievable. Get God back in America.

[Kevin M]

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

Corruption, waste and out of control spending.

Not really. The first two anyway; they exist but aren't as rampant as cynics believe.

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

15% flat tax on everybody, no loopholes.

15% on everybody would be about 2/3s of what we spend now, and les than half what we need to cut the deficit.

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

Secure the border and quit supporting illegals.

"Supporting illegals" is a tiny part of federal spending, and the reason we're flooded with Mexican and central american immigrants is our racist policies that make it quite impossible for them to do it legally.

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

Get the welfare under control and qiut giving away our money to to help other countries.

Again, very small parts of the problem.

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

Drill , Drill Drill baby Drill.

Not an economic solution especially in the long term, and the environmental risks are way too high. See: BP disaster offshore in the gulf.

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

Reign in the lawyers, pull the perks from congress and gov't managers. Make congress live by the same rules as ordinary Joe.

Again, not a real solution.

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

Term limits for all politicians.

They're both unconstitutional and stupid. If your rep sucks, stop voting for him.

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

Grow a sack . Quit lying every time you speak and care about more than your next re-election.

This problem would be solved by one simple rule- no more cash donations to re-elections. All forms of media should be required to donate (or be paid by a pooled political campaign fund) and give equal time and opportunity to all candidates.

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

Reform campaign finance so taxpayer $$ given to orginizations and unions can't be funneled back to the politicians campaign fund.

Under the current system, restricting who can and can't give money to a candidate creates an unfair playing field. Is it a good idea to make it so that big businesses can buy politicians but workers can't? At least this way everybody gets their

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

Raising taxes on the wealthy needs to come only after the gov't reigns in spending, vat tax could then be looked at as well.

VATs and sales taxes are stupid. They discourage spending while making federal funds even more volatile than they currently are as the economy ebbs and flows. Income taxes do not discourage people from earning more, just causes whining about their tax bills.

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

I think its game over if O man gets re-elected, the dollar will collapse and the muslims will be knocking at our door to "save us".. Wake up America before its too late.

As Scott pointed out, Obama is reaping what was sown over the previous two decades. Tax and spend liberalism >>> spend and don't tax "conservatism" from the Bush years. If Obama ever wakes up and stops letting the right stop him.

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

Can the czars and use the cabinet, I could go on but our leaders better change their priorities, the greed is unbelievable. Get God back in America.

Obama has basically the same number of "czars" as Bush did, but the whole thing is just stupid media commentary. There's always been some guy in charge of a thousand different federal departments who had authority.

[sperry]

Kevin, I'm the total opposite when it comes to taxes. I'm all for a pure sales tax. Figure 20% flat tax on all first retail sales of goods and services. Toss in an upper bound of around 10% local sales taxes, and we're looking at about 30% tax. So, if you're a lower income family, your effective tax rate will go up, but then the gov't cuts a rebate check to every citizen over say 5 or 10 years old... so if you're poor, the rebate should nearly cover 100% of your effective tax rate, and if you're rich, the rebate is just a token drop in the bucket. IMO, there's nothing more fair than that... you can even refuse to pay taxes 100% just by purchasing everything second hand.

The administration of a national sales tax gets computerized, everyone that sells more than some $ threshold of items each year will be required to pass the collected tax on to the gov't via logging in and recording sales and EFT transfers. So you can still sell stuff on eBay or private party all you want, until you're selling enough to be considered a "reseller". Securities and stocks, etc, are taxed at their purchase prices, rather than dealing with cost basis and capital gains, etc. Effectively investment bankers may even pay less tax than they do now, which is fine because really the US's only exportable commodity these days is banking. Might as well try to keep that as healthy as possible.

The only other tax besides sales tax would probably be property tax. I'm kinda fundamentally opposed to the idea of repeat taxes on something just for owning it... but real estate, just by simply existing, does cost a city money due to road and utility maintenance... so I think I could get over that. Otherwise, I love the idea that a flat sales tax means individuals have complete power over how much tax they spend based on their purchasing habits. Plus you make money off all the folks that make their money illegally, not to mention the huge income from taxing sales on the internet.

[100_Percent_Juice]

Originally Posted by Kevin M

Not really. The first two anyway; they exist but aren't as rampant as cynics believe.

Wrong. Have you seen 24?

[MikeK]

Originally Posted by sperry

I love the idea that a flat sales tax means individuals have complete power over how much tax they spend based on their purchasing habits.

I love the idea that unemployed accountants will have to start waiting tables, so we won't need Nick to add up the bill anymore.

[Bajozzy]

Cynics wouldn't believe there is alot of waste in govt, nah.

Waste, nah, vacations for 13 members of congress and their families (thats just today)in china under the guise of diplomatic BS, visiting several cities all in luxury, just saying all the wasted $$ adds up.

Corruption, thats nothing, doesn't even count, would never happen, nothing to see, move on.

Supporting illegals is cheap right, ok even though we are flooded with them a very large percentage are on the dole and pay zero taxes. Welfare, food stamps and all the freebies can't add up to much right ? All the people who decide they don't want to work should get more than two years unemployment, Hell I think I will sign up.

Maybe the congress people should get their own czars that aren't vetted by anyone but themselves, and just because Bush did it's completelty justified to go ahead and follow his great policies, or just hire clintons old cronies and let them run it, thats some awesome hope and change. woo hoo..

Why make congress have the same healthcare and benefit packages as other govt workers, that would be silly, how about letting them vote on their own salary and pensions, oh wait they do, sweet.

Most people don't even know who their rep is and vote party line so idiots like wrangle (Brooklyn) keep getting elected.
These people (both parties) have us in a bad way, they care about getting rich and re-elected period, I'm sure term limits wouldn't change that scenario, nah.

Taxes were not meant to punish people for their choices. Cigarette tax and even gas tax does this. If your going to have a fair tax, (not just the top 50% carrying the load) why not do a straight across the board vat, na thats stupid.

I completely disagree with almost everything you say Kevin, weird huh nothing personal.

[Kevin M]

Originally Posted by Bajozzy

I completely disagree with almost everything you say Kevin, weird huh nothing personal.

Politics are a silly thing to take personally. And I just disagreed with a lengthy post of yours, so I expected no different.

[Bajozzy]

Cool beans. Were all doomed anyway....OZZY on Sat nite...woot.

[Double Phister]

I don't know. Sales tax bugs me because there are too many exceptions. A flat income tax is dead simple and I don't waste my time looking for loopholes or trying to stay under some made up limit on 2nd hand. Even the term 2nd hand gets blury when you buy two things, turn them into one new thing. Is that taxed on its sale under Scotts rules?

Does a car get taxed on it's sale? What if it's reeeeaaaly expensive and used (like a Vyron)? How about a home. Is it subject to sales tax? Motorhome?

How about 30% flat income tax, 0% sales tax?

[sperry]

Well, I'm bummed. The Daily Show is gonna have to actually write their own material for 2012.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/...121943724.html

[Kevin M]

One less clown doesn't empty the whole car.

[sperry]

It's that time again!

I'm not asking people to say who they're voting for... but how do you guys see it playing out tonight? I say Obama takes it, even without Ohio.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elec...ce-predictions

[Kevin M]

Isn't that roughly what Fox predicted in 2008?

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Kevin M

Isn't that roughly what Fox predicted in 2008?

Hell if I can remember.

[Dean]

I think the media will have an absolute conniption from not being able to "call" states before the polls close and the talking heads will explode with mindless drivel from the shear indeterminacy of it all.

In the end, if it is remotely close, lawyers will be involved and possibly ultimately the supreme court.

Voting machines incorrectly calibrated by people who still own VCRs blinking 12:00 will be blamed rather than the voters not bothering to look at the screen and move their fingers accordingly to make the right box be checked.

The world will not end regardless of whom is ultimately elected, and the Partisanship of the congress will continue and with still split houses gridlock will continue which might well be the best for the country.

[Kevin M]

Originally Posted by Dean

The world will not end regardless of whom is ultimately elected, and the Partisanship of the congress will continue and with still split houses gridlock will continue which might well be the best for the country.

This. But the price of most financial instruments and commodities will be affected tomorrow in differing ways, mostly by a bunch of people selling one to buy another.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Dean

I think the media will have an absolute conniption from not being able to "call" states before the polls close and the talking heads will explode with mindless drivel from the shear indeterminacy of it all.

In the end, if it is remotely close, lawyers will be involved and possibly ultimately the supreme court.

Voting machines incorrectly calibrated by people who still own VCRs blinking 12:00 will be blamed rather than the voters not bothering to look at the screen and move their fingers accordingly to make the right box be checked.

The world will not end regardless of whom is ultimately elected, and the Partisanship of the congress will continue and with still split houses gridlock will continue which might well be the best for the country.

The issues of touch screen calibration errors would be drastically reduced if the software simply showed one race at a time so there's room enough on the screen that candidate's buttons don't need to be directly next to each other.

I don't know why the voting machines seem to be designed, built, and programmed by a bunch of weekend web developers. We should have the same guys that are building control systems for cruise missiles take a month off to create a secure, robust, foolproof voting machine.

[Kevin M]

I would say there are literally millions of professional programmers who could handle the job in a relatively short amount of time. But taxpayers are cheap bastards, so we get the low bid weekender machines.

[Dean]

The problem is the rules/laws/design requirements appear to require the digitizers (touch sensors) be calibrated in the field, so calibration is only as good as the person doing it. The technology is not bad, the staff/operators are.