Quote :

"Obama changed his story on fucking EVERYTHING. That's the whole point. Congratulations, though, on cherry-picking one sentence and not including the rest of his speeches where he claimed 250k and below would get a cut. "

Oh NO's Obama Lied on the campaign trail and is incompetent for not knowing where every tax penny is coming from and how every dollar is being spend before even getting elected.

If Obama were to grant a tax cut for those making less than $248,000 instead of $250,000 as said during his campaigning than we should definitely impeach.

3/1/2009 10:09:11 PM

Well, he is raising taxes on everyone in the form of carbon cap and trade. Even on those making less than $248,000

3/1/2009 10:31:26 PM

not directly. if you use that sort of logic then you could say that any business taxes are a raise in taxes on everyone in the country. which i guess is exactly what you would say.

3/2/2009 5:00:05 PM

I would say that. The question is, why would you not say that? Are you suggesting a doubling of the gasoline tax, which is paid by Exxon and their ilk, would not result in higher gasoline prices?

3/2/2009 5:41:02 PM

it would likely raise gas taxes. but not that it's a tax on me directly. i have a choice as to whether or not i purchase gasoline (and how much of it i purchase). i do not have that choice for something like income tax. that's the whole point of a cap and trade system.

[Edited on March 2, 2009 at 9:18 PM. Reason : .]

3/2/2009 9:18:00 PM

I really dont understand your logic. I mean, I know that *technically* you are right but that is not realistic for the vast majority of people.

call a spade a spade here. higher gas costs/taxes effect EVERYTHING, not just people who drive.

[Edited on March 2, 2009 at 9:31 PM. Reason : .]

3/2/2009 9:31:06 PM

habits aren't going to die easily.

3/2/2009 10:41:46 PM

or quickly...and sometimes not at all

sup sarijoul? you been doing ok?

3/2/2009 10:47:15 PM

yeah i'm good.

3/2/2009 10:54:10 PM

good to hear

3/2/2009 11:18:33 PM

Quote :

"would likely raise gas taxes. but not that it's a tax on me directly. i have a choice as to whether or not i purchase gasoline (and how much of it i purchase). i do not have that choice for something like income tax. that's the whole point of a cap and trade system."

Not true at all. You certainly do have a choice for something like the income tax. For example, the unemployed among us do not pay the income tax. Also, those who work extreme part time (10 hours or less a week) tend to collect the Earned Income Tax Credit which exceeds their income taxes.

So, your POV is absurd. All taxes are voluntary to some extent. You choose how much income you wish to have subject to the income tax; you choose how much food to have subject to the food tax; you choose how much porn to have subject to the sales tax.

3/3/2009 12:03:53 AM

i'd say the income tax is the least voluntary of all those. that and maybe the food tax.

i understand that a gas tax could impact prices of all sorts of things nationwide because of the distance from which most of our products come. but again, capitalism is a powerful thing and i'm sure there would be viable and affordable solutions to these issues.

[Edited on March 3, 2009 at 10:36 AM. Reason : .]

3/3/2009 10:36:42 AM

Quote :

"i'd say the income tax is the least voluntary of all those."

I'm sure most things in life operate on a gradient where there is substantial grey area. But the term 'voluntary' does not seem to me to be one of those. Either way, this semantic does not matter; what matters is that a higher price for carbon fuels which raises revenue for either the government or government agents (traders in New York exchanges) makes it a tax, whether it is voluntary or not, it is still a tax being imposed on the American people. The bulk of people get poorer and the government gets richer, that is a tax. This makes obama a liar if he ever promised not to raise taxes on whatever percentage of Americans he chose.

3/3/2009 11:47:26 AM

Quote :

"This makes obama a liar if he ever promised not to raise taxes on whatever percentage of Americans he chose. "

not if he laid out what he was going to do about cap and trade AND the income tax AND payroll tax and he seems to be following through on it (at least on the income and payroll tax so far. scuttlebutt is that the dems don't want the cap and trade thing to pass right now anyway, they want the republicans to defeat so that they can wait until better economic times to pass it)

3/3/2009 12:48:18 PM

Quote :

"it would likely raise gas taxes. but not that it's a tax on me directly. i have a choice as to whether or not i purchase gasoline (and how much of it i purchase). i do not have that choice for something like income tax."

Do you eat? How do you think your food gets to the shelf? It gets driven there.
Do you ever go anywhere? Unless you walk or take a bike or bum a ride, then you will be paying that tax increase.

3/6/2009 10:12:02 AM

The promise repeated over and over again was

Families making less than 250K will not see their income taxes increase one dime and families making less than 200K will see a tax cut.


The proposal was for $500 individual and $1000 family.

Congress cut that down to $400 individual and $800 family. Thus the phase out happens slightly before 200K for a family.

So technically Obama did not fulfill his promise - there are families making between 190K and 200K who will not see a tax cut. However, his proposed stimulus package did have that cut and he is not a dictator.



Now I will say this -

What has become increasingly clear from listening to Obama advisors is that the $500 and $1000 cuts are conceptually intended to be an offset for the carbon cap-n-trade. That is, poor families will see their gas and electric bills go up, but they will get this check.

Thats why its a flat check, which was confusing at first. Typically, left leaning economists favor increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit rather than a simple rebate.


However, environmental economic policy always starts with the assumption that you tax a pollutant and then rebate the tax revenue back to the consumers as one lump sum. That way you incorporate a price effect but no income effect from taxation.

3/6/2009 11:57:56 AM

Quote :

"Do you eat? How do you think your food gets to the shelf? It gets driven there. Do you ever go anywhere? Unless you walk or take a bike or bum a ride, then you will be paying that tax increase."

the thing about this list is that there are viable choices to be made in every single one of those that would reduce the dependence i have on gasoline.

until fairly recently i walked to work most days. as it is currently i could ride the bus (and i have occasionally, but gas prices going back down have gotten rid of part of the incentive for me). not to mention businesses could make choices that would reduce the impact of increased gas prices on their products by buying locally, and getting goods that shipped through more efficient means such as rail as opposed to truck (at least for all but the last mile or so).

i guess you didn't understand that i'm not talking about a quick fix here. things won't be easy for the first couple years. old habits die hard. but they will have to at some point and i'd rather it be while we're still a wealthy and prosperous nation rather than it doing it out of absolute necessity in a decade or two.

3/6/2009 12:14:40 PM

It seems to me that it would be a lot easier to raise taxes on fossil fuels, rather than a complex carbon cap-and-trade system. Kind of like the debate over taxing mileage versus an increase in the gas tax. Why go the extra route of trying to account for all industrial emissions when you can levy a tax right at the source, the fuel itself?

I understand that higher fuel taxes are not popular because consumers feel a direct impact at the pump. However, a convoluted cap-and-trade system may have unintended effects on the economy, as they have seen in Europe. Also in California, the cap-and-trade system has created a disadvantage for local industries and caused utilities to import energy from other states, resulting in a net loss of jobs.

3/6/2009 12:18:53 PM

Quote :

"Why go the extra route of trying to account for all industrial emissions when you can levy a tax right at the source, the fuel itself?"

Do industrial emissions have to meet the emissions standards of your average vehicle? Why should people pay the same emissions tax rate with their cleaner vehicles?

3/6/2009 12:40:39 PM

If you drive a fuel-efficient car, you will pay less in gas taxes because you are using less gas. It's not a tough concept. Likewise, an industrial company with old, inefficient machinery and energy-intensive processes will pay more carbon taxes because they use more energy and fossil fuels.

If we are talking specifically about carbon, a gallon of gasoline (or a ton of coal, whatever), will release approximately the same amount of CO2 whether you are using an old, "dirty" engine or a new, "low emissions" engine. It's just the efficiency that changes. A tax on the fuel takes the highest toll on those that waste the fuel, which is kinda the point.


[Edited on March 6, 2009 at 12:55 PM. Reason : 2]

3/6/2009 12:51:57 PM

I was making the assumption that the carbon emissions put out by some sort of industrial plant were far greater in terms of x output to y input. I assumed that cars, with all the regulations, put out far less percentage of carbon emissions per input unit.

I'm not comparing new cars with old. I'm comparing a factory with a vehicle. Doesn't seem fair to charge the automobile users the same tax rate when they are polluting to the tune of .003 ppb while the factory pollutes to the tune of .3 ppb using the same amount of fuel as input. (made up numbers with a mad up assumption).

Just take a single gallon of gas with some made up numbers as an example. The pollution tax on the gas is say $0.10. The car puts out .5 pounds of carbon emission. The vehicle owner just paid 10 cents to put a half pound of carbon in the air. With that same gallon, the factory puts out 1.5 pounds of carbon into the air. They just paid the same 10 cents to do so. The vehicle owner is paying the higher tax, since his cost per pound is $0.20 while the factory's cost per pound is about $0.07.

Meh. I don't make an effort to be up on such things. Carry on.


[Edited on March 6, 2009 at 1:05 PM. Reason : -]

3/6/2009 12:59:51 PM

^ I believe you are making an incorrect assumption. Please read this again:

Quote :

"If we are talking specifically about carbon, a gallon of gasoline (or a ton of coal, whatever), will release approximately the same amount of CO2 whether you are using an old, "dirty" engine or a new, "low emissions" engine. It's just the efficiency that changes. A tax on the fuel takes the highest toll on those that waste the fuel, which is kinda the point."

If you understand combustion, you know that the carbon released when burning a gallon of fuel is gonna be pretty constant. Certain factors like combustion temperatures, compression, fuel-air ratio, etc will impact how complete the combustion is, but fossil fuels + Oxygen in the air = CO2 + water vapor + random emissions. "Low-emissions" vehicles try to limit those random emissions like nitrous oxides, etc and boost efficiency, but for every gallon of gasoline they use, they are producing a similar amount of carbon dioxide as a big, "dirty" gasoline engine in an industrial plant. In fact, they are probably producing more carbon per gallon because the engine has a more complete combustion cycle in the quest for high efficiency.

3/6/2009 1:26:27 PM

Ok. I guess I figured cars had things that lowered the CO2 emissions. Makes sense.

[Edited on March 6, 2009 at 1:36 PM. Reason : -]

3/6/2009 1:35:34 PM

No problem, common misconception. The way "low-emissions vehicles" limit CO2 is by getting more mileage per gallon, requiring you to use less gas. If you are using less gas, you will be paying less in gas taxes so it works out.

3/6/2009 1:41:45 PM

You might want to tax the emmission instead of the source for a few reasons

1 ) People may not burn the fuel. It is my understanding that Crude Oil has industrial uses that do involve combustion.

2)How then do you give the source credits for abateing immissions. So suppose I capture my carbon and bury it under ground. Shouldn't I get points even if I am not burning less coal?

3/8/2009 3:28:46 AM

back to the topic, I got my $10 a week raise! whohoo!

3/17/2009 8:59:07 PM

no you didn't. Obama just raised the withholdings calculations, so you probably just took home less than before

3/18/2009 7:43:41 AM

Nope, my federal withholdings went down $10. So my take home pay went up $10.

I thought it was supposed to be $13 though

[Edited on March 18, 2009 at 8:54 AM. Reason : ]

3/18/2009 8:54:20 AM

So, wait, the unemployed get nothing?

3/19/2009 12:22:15 PM

Quote :

"i'd say the income tax is the least voluntary of all those. that and maybe the food tax. i understand that a gas tax could impact prices of all sorts of things nationwide because of the distance from which most of our products come. but again, capitalism is a powerful thing and i'm sure there would be viable and affordable solutions to these issues."

I love how on one hand you are fine with a horribly anti free market tax, then on the other hand that capitalism will find a way to make it work. Amazing.

3/19/2009 12:55:26 PM

ive got a story.

I got laid off about 5 months ago and ive been paying 100% of my health insurance which is $353. Now the stimulus package just got passed so I now have to pay $123 a month because my former employer is covering a large percentage of the cost.

so im pretty happy and saving a couple hundred bucks in the process.

how obama just has to give me a job painting a big wall or something.

3/19/2009 3:03:18 PM

Quote :

"I love how on one hand you are fine with a horribly anti free market tax, then on the other hand that capitalism will find a way to make it work. Amazing."

i don't need gas necessarily. i need food and i need an income. it's not that complicated.

3/19/2009 3:10:28 PM

You need gas as much as you need income. Afterall, shelters exist for those without income just as god gave you legs to walk to work.

3/19/2009 3:29:39 PM

are you serious? that's a damn weak argument right there.

3/19/2009 3:41:50 PM

Taxing the source is not a good idea. You're basically forgetting the entire notion of post-combustion emission control.

emission filtering
emission recirculation
controlling the state of carbon

Burning a gallon of fuel is going to release the same amount of carbon in any case, but you have to consider what form that released carbon is going to take. Will it be gaseous CO, gaseous CO2, solid deposit carbon, etc? Some of these are far more preferrable than others.


Anyways, I'm surprised at anyone who actually thinks the president is going to decide how Americans are taxed. That's up to Congress - Obama only gives it his approval. The stimulus package was not written by Obama. He only has veto power. There's no way it was going to strictly adhere to his provisions, unless you want legislative deadlock. He passed the bill because time was cruicial. Maybe if the economy were not in its current state, he could have been more discriminatory, but I repeat: the President does not make legislation.


[Edited on March 19, 2009 at 4:52 PM. Reason : grammar]

3/19/2009 4:46:51 PM

Quote :

"no you didn't. Obama just raised the withholdings calculations, so you probably just took home less than before"

I received a +$26 in my paycheck. I'm going to be stiumulated all the way to the bar tonight

3/19/2009 6:46:51 PM