Quote :

" TRENTON — It took about two minutes from the time Senate President Steve Sweeney certified the passage of the millionaires tax package for Gov. Chris Christie to veto the bills at his desk. "While I have little doubt that the sponsors and supporters of this bill sincerely believe that the state can tax its way out of this financial crisis, I believe that this bill does nothing more than repeat the failed, irresponsible and unsustainable fiscal policies of the past," wrote Christie in his veto statement. "Now is not the time for more of the same. Ultimately, another tax increase will punish the state’s struggling small businesses and set our economy further back from recovery." "

There's something you don't see everyday..a republican actually standing up to the democrats.

Rather than chase away the people who have the money to hire people, Christie shows the rich that they are wanted and needed by vetoing this class-warfare bill.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/nj_gov_christie_vetoes_million.html

5/21/2010 9:53:43 AM

it's a bitter battle waging right now between him and the democrats. he outright told them, even before the bill was passed, he would veto it if and when it came to his desk. very ugly in NJ politics at the moment.

5/21/2010 10:01:31 AM

new jersey is notorious for being ugly

5/21/2010 10:12:55 AM

That's a situation you've got right there.

5/21/2010 10:14:30 AM

Way to use the thread title to make this sound worse than it is.

5/21/2010 10:30:12 AM

Oh look, New Jersey is trying the SAME THING that Maryland did awhile back (ending with disastrous results).

Funny how politicians never learn from the past.

5/21/2010 10:38:11 AM

Not sure what about the thread title is misleading...

Gov Christie vetoed a bill that raises taxes on millionaires. Busniness are typically ran by millionaires. These busniesses create/slash jobs.

5/21/2010 10:43:26 AM

Hahaha.

All the rich people have you motherfuckers fooled.

"Man, I love trickle down economics!"

*opens mouth, receives piss*

5/21/2010 10:45:12 AM

"Man I love welfare economics"


*Sit on ass, open hand, receive money*

5/21/2010 10:48:43 AM

Quote :

"Gov Christie vetoed a bill that raises taxes on millionaires. Busniness are typically ran by millionaires. These busniesses create/slash jobs."

lol

what reality do you live in? businesses create jobs based primarily on need.

If taxes were the key factor to jobs, then the Bush tax cuts would have stopped the massive job losses at the second half of his presidency.

God is fundamentally right in that some rich people have successfully spent tons of money convincing gullible people like DalCowboys that they are more important than they are.

5/21/2010 11:11:44 AM

taxes are added costs of doing business. If you have less money to spend, you hire fewer workers to do the same tasks. In the current economy where you have employees doing the work of multiple people, reducing the tax burden could possibly convince a business to hire another worker. Increasing taxes will convince them to continue overusing employees until they burn out at which point you just get a new one (at a lower price) since the economy is so bad.

If you also decrease individual taxes you can increase demand for goods. Then once the economy gets going again you can tick up the tax rate. The problem is the fed is retarded and keeps handing out tax breaks to its friends, rather than the people. (ex: giving money to some worthless battery factory instead of tax credits for individual solar/wind).

Wasting taxes creating worthless do nothing government jobs doesn't help anything. Theres so much that needs to be fixed in government before looking to spend more money.

5/21/2010 11:35:09 AM

moron and God really are the stupidest ones on here, aren't they?

5/21/2010 11:38:19 AM

Quote :

"Busniness are typically ran by millionaires."

This is flat false. There are FAR more small and mid-sized businesses being run than large corporations, and most of those owners are not millionaires. Why do you think that conservatives court small businesses and talk about "main street" so much? For every Bank of America branch you have two small businesses on "main street."

[Edited on May 21, 2010 at 12:14 PM. Reason : branch]

5/21/2010 12:11:58 PM

That doesn't change the fact that 1% of the country owns 50% of the wealth.

Free market for the win, eh?

5/21/2010 12:13:36 PM

where is that statistic?

5/21/2010 12:16:03 PM

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

I was slightly off, my apologies.

Quote :

"In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. "

5/21/2010 12:17:44 PM

^ sweet, I think I'll make sure I'm in those top few percent.

5/21/2010 12:24:56 PM

I'll make sure I win the lottery.

5/21/2010 12:31:06 PM

I wonder if any of that top 1% got there by bitching and moaning about the breakdown of the United States' wealth?

Acting like we're sharing a $100 bill here not the trillions of dollars that are actually in play. Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have done more for the economy and employment rate than anyone rolling in the 15% of wealth category.

5/21/2010 1:12:25 PM

No, usually by institutional benefits that game the system.

5/21/2010 1:39:02 PM

typical liberalism, anyone who got wealthy did so by lying, cheating, scamming and gaming the system. Or by opressing the prols

5/21/2010 1:47:03 PM

and since they lied, cheated, scammed, and gamed they should give their (not so) hard earned money back all of those honest (not so) hard working individuals who just can't catch a break like they did

5/21/2010 1:51:57 PM

Here's what happened in Maryland when they tried it. Politicians really do have short memories.

Original story here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124329282377252471.html

Quote :

"Millionaires Go Missing Maryland's fleeced taxpayers fight back. MAY 27, 2009 Here's a two-minute drill in soak-the-rich economics: Maryland couldn't balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O'Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were "willing and able to pay their fair share." The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would "grin and bear it." One year later, nobody's grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline." On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates. No doubt the majority of that loss in millionaire filings results from the recession. However, this is one reason that depending on the rich to finance government is so ill-advised: Progressive tax rates create mountains of cash during good times that vanish during recessions. For evidence, consult California, New York and New Jersey (see here). The Maryland state revenue office says it's "way too early" to tell how many millionaires moved out of the state when the tax rates rose. But no one disputes that some rich filers did leave. It's easier than the redistributionists think. Christopher Summers, president of the Maryland Public Policy Institute, notes: "Marylanders with high incomes typically own second homes in tax friendlier states like Florida, Delaware, South Carolina and Virginia. So it's easy for them to change their residency." All of this means that the burden of paying for bloated government in Annapolis will fall on the middle class. Thanks to the futility of soaking the rich, these working families will now pay Mr. O'Malley's "fair share.""

5/21/2010 2:09:58 PM

common sense.

the richest are also the most mobile. you cannot exert gross inequalities on people and expect to take them in the ass forever.

5/21/2010 2:28:02 PM

^ yep, some people are to obtuse to understand that.

ultimately increased tax rates always end up fucking the middle class.

5/21/2010 2:47:05 PM

Quote :

"ultimately increased tax rates always end up fucking the middle class."

Yup -- as evidenced by the last line in the article:

Quote :

"All of this means that the burden of paying for bloated government in Annapolis will fall on the middle class. Thanks to the futility of soaking the rich, these working families will now pay Mr. O'Malley's "fair share.""

[Edited on May 21, 2010 at 2:52 PM. Reason : ]

5/21/2010 2:52:26 PM

Quote :

"TO OBTUSE TO"

5/21/2010 2:56:43 PM

I'm gonna hafta go with indoctrination by the richest few in order to persuade the poorer masses into accepting a greater portion of the tax burden.

But I'm sure the Wall Street Journal will prove me wrong on this.

5/21/2010 4:21:24 PM

I'd like to see the opposite of this bill, where the poor people who don't pay any taxes now actually have to pay taxes. That way people might actually pay attention to what the government spends money on and there could be more accountability for what happens with tax dollars.

5/21/2010 4:30:06 PM

Quote :

"There's something you don't see everyday..a republican actually standing up to the democrats."

Yeah, because if the democrats raised taxes to pay off debt, what the hell would republicans have to BAWWW about? Which is it? Taxes or debt?

Quote :

"taxes are added costs of doing business"

Not all taxes and not all businesses. Raising property taxes on large residential houses is not going to significantly add to the cost of doing business.

Quote :

"typical liberalism, anyone who got wealthy did so by lying, cheating, scamming and gaming the system. Or by opressing the prols"

typical conservatism, anyone who got poor did so by laziness, bad decision, and welfare dependence.

SEE WUT I DID THERE?

5/21/2010 5:32:02 PM

Quote :

"because if the democrats raised taxes to pay off debt"

Don't construe this as defending Republicans--they've been as bad as the Democrats for the last decade in terms of spending and running up debt.

...but let's be real--Democrats love of taxes is not a mark of fiscal responsibility. It's to partially pay for all the entitlement programs they love, and to redistribute wealth.

5/21/2010 5:51:25 PM

Quote :

"very ugly in NJ politics at the moment."

Politics is and should be ugly. Any time politics isn't ugly, you should be scared.

5/21/2010 5:59:16 PM

I'll expect you to be just as real, the complaints on this thread had nothing to do about where the money was spent. Republicans dislike taxes regardless of what they will be spent on.

5/21/2010 6:00:09 PM

...for a couple of reasons.

1. Higher taxes wouldn't be needed if we had some fucking fiscal restraint.

Of course, the GOP has little to none of that, but that's part of why I hate taxes.


2. Our tax system is already more than progressive enough. Most people don't even fucking pay any (which leads to the problem of wooing them with entitlement programs that they don't have to pay for). If you go too far, you run into problems like this where the rich just do whatever it takes to keep you from taking their money.


3. I just have an ideological problem with taking a far greater percentage of someone's money just because he has plenty of it. That's fucked up.

Plus, I'm doing my damnedest to be that guy with plenty of money by working my tits off and living below my means to accrue significant wealth, and I don't want people like you to rob me via tyranny of the majority.




_____________________

I will agree that the fantastically rich (like, hundreds of millions or billionaire-level rich) who's earned income only accounts for a small percentage of their total income should be taxed more, so as to allow us to tax dividends and long-term capital gains at a lower rate for everyone else. An important distinction is that I don't think that Warren Buffett should be taxed more because he has tons of money--I think that his earned income should be taxed more because most of his income is taxed at the 15% rate.

5/21/2010 6:36:40 PM

one line that wasn't highlighted in the above article that seems pretty critical:

Quote :

"No doubt the majority of that loss in millionaire filings results from the recession."

5/21/2010 6:42:51 PM

Quote :

"moron and God really are the stupidest ones on here, aren't they? "

Yes, it's dumb to look at real world statistics and consider reality, instead of sticking to a blind, unproven ideology.

The current jobless number is 440,000 people. To employ half of those people for 30-50k/year would cost between 6 and 11 billion dollars.

There are about 7 million millionaires in the US, which the Bush tax cuts gave on average about 34000 back to, which means Bush gave those unfortunate millionaires back 238,000,000,000 of their money. That's enough to COMPLETELY ELIMINATE the current record high unemployment rate 10x over.

And you're going to tell me the only way to recover jobs is to keep giving these people back more money, while the rest of us take pay freezes or cuts, or job losses, in hopes they'll take pity and hire more people anyway?

I think it was Einstein that said the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over again, and expecting different results. Bush cut taxes on millionaires giving them back far more than they need to, in your theoretical world, give people jobs, and the result was record high unemployment. And your brilliant idea is to repeat this step...?

5/21/2010 6:50:24 PM

I get so tired of people bitching about tax rates, when the reality is that they have been dropping steadily since the Reagan years. From the 1940s-1960s, the highest tax bracket was around 90 percent, and the estate tax never dropped below 77 percent.

The truth is that the pendulum has swung too far in correcting itself, and the Republicans, Tea Partiers, and Libertarians of today are pushing it even further. It's not just the military industrial complex that Ike warned about that is so dangerous, with such a huge chunk of our income going to defense, but the push is for ever lower taxes, even in the face of the failure of the Laffer curve and trickle down economics.

I'm not advocating for 90 percent tax rates ever again, that's pretty obscene, but the truth is that there was significant wealth buildup in this country even during those years. We need to understand that there IS a time to raise taxes. We have already clearly received the message that cutting services at times is required, as evidenced by what is happening in both North Carolina and California, among other places, but how come no one will ever admit that there are times when taxes should be raised? Seriously, NEVER? Have you heard of ANY Republican who talks about raising taxes at all in the past 20 years? Doesn't that make you a little suspicious? It's like your mother in law who thinks you do everything wrong. At a certain point, you realize there's nothing you can do right, she is just being a bitch.

5/21/2010 7:01:39 PM

^ not to mention that you can't say you hate the debt, and then in the same breath, say we shouldn't raise taxes. And especially in times like this, raising taxes is necessary.

if you cut fed. gov services even in half (which no one will stand for), you're looking at a minimum of about 20 years to pay off the debt, with fed gov. services cut by half.

When you consider a best case scenario puts politically viable cuts at maybe 20-30 percent, that jumps to about 40 years to pay off the debt. This is assuming the wind down of gov. safety nets doesn't cause its own problems.

And this is without raising taxes.

There is no way ever that any politician could seriously to argue for eliminating the debt, without raising taxes, when this is at best a 40 year track. We're in a deep hole.

5/21/2010 7:08:19 PM

Quote :

"1. Higher taxes wouldn't be needed if we had some fucking fiscal restraint. "

You got my vote Duke.

Lowering taxes typically speeds up paying off the debt. The increased economic activity will fill the tax coffers much quicker than raising taxes during a recession.

Pres. Obama should have given every house-hold a 2-3 year income tax & capital gains tax holiday to restart the economy.
Or instead of spending $50 billion to buy GM, he could've given every household a million dollars... that would've only cost about 270 million..and would've sparked much more economic activity than paying back his chums in the the auto union.

5/21/2010 10:41:00 PM

^i hope thats sarcasm because 300 million people * 1 million dollars = 300,000,000,000,000. Thats actually 300 trillion dollars which is 1/3 of a QUADRILLION DOLLARS....that's a lot a lot a lot a lot of money...enough to make congress crap there pants and then clean it up with 100's...

5/21/2010 10:47:07 PM

^
Oops.. not sarcasm..lame math. Sorry.

5/21/2010 11:26:36 PM

I am conservative and I am not against taxes. I am against expecting any one segment of the population to "carry the burden" while allowing another to skate.

if it were necessary to all of us to pay 50% in order to make this country function, but nobody was excluded, I would be a hell of a lot happier.

5/22/2010 12:15:32 AM

Yeah, I probably still wouldn't like it. However, as it currently stands I'm one of the roughly 50% of folks who are paying taxes. I don't mind hearing the griping from my tax paying brethren, what does get on my nerves are the people who are already paying zero taxes, or even worse, people receiving more in tax credits than they paid in to begin with.

Look, I understand that governments require funding, and while I'd prefer we limited the size of government, paid back our overwhelming debt, canceled many of our failing or doomed to fail social programs, reigned in military spending, etc. and paid for most if it via tariffs I also realize that it'll probably never happen. As such, all I ask is that we commit to a balanced or surplus budget (barring necessary defensive wartime spending) and that we stop giving people more back than they paid in, and make everyone pay something, even if it's only 1%. Continuing to bleed a very small segment of the population to garner votes from the rest is morally repugnant.

5/22/2010 1:14:59 AM

you gotta tax everyone so that people feel ownership of the problems...use the Habitat for humanity model. It works! Putting too much burden on the Millionaires would likely move some out of state and render the state going "Who is going to bankroll us now?"

5/22/2010 7:58:12 AM

Quote :

"1. Higher taxes wouldn't be needed if we had some fucking fiscal restraint. “ You got my vote Duke. "

too bad that’s not true, unless you mean “had” in the most literal past tense sense.

In which case you can blame Ronald Reagan.

Quote :

"if you cut fed. gov services even in half (which no one will stand for), you're looking at a minimum of about 20 years to pay off the debt, with fed gov. services cut by half. When you consider a best case scenario puts politically viable cuts at maybe 20-30 percent, that jumps to about 40 years to pay off the debt. This is assuming the wind down of gov. safety nets doesn't cause its own problems. "

Quote :

" Continuing to bleed a very small segment of the population to garner votes from the rest is morally repugnant."

Who is being bled…?

[Edited on May 22, 2010 at 10:26 AM. Reason : ]

5/22/2010 10:24:12 AM

Oh I don't know, how about the 10% of the population who paid over 70% of all income tax collected.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0&.v=1

More to the point though is the appalling fact that half the country pays nothing or receives money, while the other half actually pays something. Can we at least agree that the amount of tax credits and deductions you can receive should never be allowed to exceed the amount of tax withheld?

5/22/2010 12:06:23 PM

That's just proof that no matter how much the left talks about the "rich" paying their "fair share", it's ultimately redistribution of wealth that they want.

5/22/2010 12:25:06 PM

Quote :

"Lowering taxes typically speeds up paying off the debt. The increased economic activity will fill the tax coffers much quicker than raising taxes during a recession."

Nice generality, but decreasing taxes does not necessarily increase economic activity, furthermore, it certainly doesn't always increase economic activity enough to offset the cost of the cut. Things aren't that simple.

That's as if I were to just say "increasing government spending by investing into our economy will increase economic activities and fill tax coffers".

Quote :

"Pres. Obama should have given every house-hold a 2-3 year income tax & capital gains tax holiday to restart the economy."

Do you realize how much that would increase our national debt?

Quote :

"Or instead of spending $50 billion to buy GM, he could've given every household a million dollars... that would've only cost about 270 million.."

Are you serious? Do you really only think there are 270 households in the untied states? There are more households than that on my street. You need to work on your math.

Quote :

"and make everyone pay something, even if it's only 1%"

Everyone does pay some taxes.

Quote :

"Can we at least agree that the amount of tax credits and deductions you can receive should never be allowed to exceed the amount of tax withheld?"

For income taxes only? Why so specific?

5/22/2010 12:33:23 PM

Sorry, but the argument doesn't really hold water when you talk about taxing business less to jumpstart the economy and there are corporations, I believe one of the largest in the world, Exxon-Mobil, is one of them, that paid $0 in taxes last year.

Upon further review, 1 in 4 of the US's large corporation pay no tax. So fuck you to those of you bitching at the lowest portion of our population not paying taxes. They have 10-20k a year to live on, I have less issue with them not paying taxes. Major corporations have ZERO excuse.

Where's all the outrage in the thread about that? Oh, you don't have any? Or you weren't aware? Big surprise. Glen Beck and Joe the Plumber don't bring that up.

[Edited on May 22, 2010 at 6:00 PM. Reason : b]

5/22/2010 5:57:27 PM

Corporate welfare and corporate taxation were not the subject of this thread. If you'd like to see me bitch about that then start a thread about it, I'll be happy to side with you. However, as far as personal income tax, fuck yes it's massively unfair.

5/22/2010 7:00:42 PM