It's time for you to be stimulated........

Here's where we keep the polls, and anyone can start a poll!

How do you feel about the Stimulus?

Heck yeah!! Show me the money baby! Smartest thing ever!
5
9%
Hell no, another doggone Albatross around our necks.
45
82%
Just about right........
5
9%
 
Total votes : 55

Postby Miriam C. » Thu Mar 05, 2009 3:37 pm

Nitetimes wrote:
Elumia wrote:you could always make a contribution:

How do you make a contribution to reduce the debt?
Make your check payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt, and in the memo section, notate that it is a Gift to reduce the Debt Held by the Public. Mail your check to:

Attn Dept G
Bureau Of the Public Debt
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188


http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reso ... ebtFinance


I contribute quite enough, thank you very much!!! I think I'll hang on to what little I got left! :roll:


:shock: :? You have something left? :oops:
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Postby caseydog » Thu Mar 05, 2009 4:42 pm

Nitetimes wrote:
caseydog wrote:
Dixie Flyer wrote:Well....out of all this....this is the bottom line.....

The government is creating massive debts that can never be repaid............ever.


If you look at the chart I posted before, the government debt was being paid down in the nineties, so it CAN be done.


Hmmmm, and just who was paying this debt???? :roll: :roll:
I can see taxes on par with Europe and Britain in the near future..........I thought that was part of what they came over on those boats to get away from............


I've heard that. And, I've heard guns will be outlawed in the near future. And, I've heard that allowing gay marriage will lead to allowing marriage between men and hamsters.

None of those things will happen.

The wealthy are going to lose some of their generous tax cuts. Capital gains will go back to be treated just like money you work for, so Warren Buffet will pay a higher percentage of his annual income in taxes than I do -- currently he pays a lower percentage.

The talk about massive tax increases is more fear mongering.

Getting back to the stimulus plan, the oppositions plan was another round of tax cuts, like we did during the last recession. And here we are a few years later in the worst recession since 1929. Putting a few extra bucks into a working man's pocket won't help if he's worried about losing his job -- he's going to be reluctant to spend it. And, putting a lot more money in a rich guys pocket won't matter, either, if he can already buy anything he wants. And, the rich guy won't start a new business or hire new employees if there is no demand for the products and services that investment would produce.

When people have jobs, and believe that those jobs will be around in a year, they will begin to spend again. Money is PULLED through our economy, not pushed.

We had a slight tax increase in 1992, followed by a long stretch of economic expansion. So, I have a hard time buying the notion that tax cuts are the silver bullet for economic problems.

BTW, if low taxes are the key to prosperity, then Mexico should be doing great. They have some of the lowest income taxes in the world.

That's the problem I have with political ideologies -- they all sound good if properly promoted, and they are easy to rally around, but none of them seem to play out very well over time.

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Postby greg755 » Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:53 pm

CD said

If you look at the chart I posted before, the government debt was being paid down in the nineties, so it CAN be done.


Paying down and paying off are two separate things. Just look at all the people who will NEVER PAY OFF their credit cards.

The truth is that THIS administration has flat out, out spent any other administration in history and it has only been in place for two months.

And less we forget not only are we talking the deficit here, but the second part of the equation is the National Debt at almost 14 trillion, that no one seems to bring up...

Further more no one is talking about all the "reforms" going into place sure you might not have as much federal tax to pay in the next couple of years as you did in the past, but the cost of elec/gas/coal/cars/products will rise dramatically because of the "reforms" It is truly a bunch of BUNK and we are paying for it.

When will we grow a spine and quit treating this like a football game and voting for "our side"? (yea we win) When will get a grip on these guys and vote out all the incumbents, regardless of party lines, who are not doing their jobs and severely damaging this country?

Our government was set up to serve the people. It is high time that all of them stand and be accounted for or get the boot.

We need strict laws in place, for accountability, term limits, and most of all the American people should dictate what their (the politicians) pay and health benefits are.

And for all the people who put themselves in debt because they couldn't control their urges and don't know the difference between a Need and a WANT I say let them get their just desserts. Their credit should be cut off permanently until they pay what they owe.

I have no problem with the Government helping the old and disabled, but for other things that is what charities are for and our charitable organizations along with the compassion of the American citizen are the best in the world. If we put the rest of the world on hold for a couple of years we would have plenty of funds to get ourselves turned around.

Bottom line is we are in this mess for two reasons.

#1 people spend to much and are used to getting something for nothing.
#2 Our leadership ( as a whole) enables these people and doesn't have any back bone to stand up and do what is right for the country..

You cant spend your way to prosparity.

A company can invest its way to profits because it has goods or services to offer. The Government HAS NO GOODS OR SERVISES so therefore it can not make a profit, its job is not to make a profit its job is to spend our money wisely in the defense of this nation and the protection/safety of the people.

Just my 5 cents worth because 2 cents isn't good enough anymore, and by next week it will be up to a quarter..

Hey CD,

By the way just what is the percentage that Warren Buffet pays in Taxes?

I cant seem to find that info anywhere, how do you know what it is?

If I could keep my job for 10 years or just get 2 years of Warren Buffets taxes, I would choose the latter.

Keep taxing the rich and they will either say:

Pass it on to the consumer.

Cut jobs and make the workers work harder to make up for it.

Or hell it ain't worth it lets move the company to X country.

So I ask you which one of these are you in favor of?
"It is a cruel thought, that, when we feel ourselves standing on the firmest ground in every respect, the cursed arts of our secret enemies, combining with other causes, should effect, by depreciating our money, what the open arms of a powerful enemy could not." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, 1779. ME 4:298, Papers 2:298
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Postby caseydog » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:42 pm

Greg, if the rich feel overtaxed, they can always move to Mexico, or Haiti -- both have low, low taxes. I'll even help them pack.

And, I will gladly pay 100-percent of the taxes that anyone making $250K per year or more. Every penny. As long as I can have their income. That offer is on the table in writing, now. No expiration date.

And, it took me less than ten seconds with Google to find that Warren Buffet paid 17.7-percent of his income in taxes. He went on National TV and told everyone what he pays in taxes compared to the people who work ordinary jobs in his office.

Also, a company will only invest it's way to profits if there are customers to buy their goods and services. Supply-side economics says that investors create jobs. But IMO, consumers create jobs.

The whole idea behind government spending during an economic crisis is to keep people working so that they have money to spend, creating a need for new investment -- and new jobs. Will it work? There are no guarantees, but it worked during the Great Depression. We won't know next month -- it'll probably be a year or more before we know for sure if it worked.

The party that is opposing this plan was in control of the white house and both houses of congress from 2001 until 2007. The annual budgets went from surplus to half-billion dollar deficits. So, I can't see any reason to try it their way again.

BTW, not all people who are carrying a lot of debt got their by spending frivolously. The number one reason for personal/family bankruptcies is medical bills from an illness. I personally can identify with that. I have fifty percent equity in my home, paid cash for my used car, and my one and only TV is a fifteen-year-old Sony Trinitron. But I ran up $35,000 in credit card debt in one year when I was treated for cancer -- and I have health insurance.

Things are not as simple as we'd like them to be. There are dozens of reasons why the US economy is where it is right now. Bursting bubbles, government ineptness, corporate greed -- and a lot more.

Getting back to the original question posed in this thread, I believe that the stimulus plan is imperfect, but worth a try. Liberals say it wasn't big enough, and conservatives rant that it is too big, and all wrong. Maybe that means it is just right. :thinking:

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Postby Dixie Flyer » Fri Mar 06, 2009 7:32 am

Who pays the business tax anyway? We do! You can’t tax business. Business doesn’t pay taxes. It collects taxes. And if they can’t be passed on to the customer in the price of the product as a cost of operation, business goes out of business.

Now what they’re going to do is make it easier for demagogic politicians–and you’ve got plenty of them in the congress–to say to the people, look, we need money for this worthwhile project but we’re not going to tax you, we’re going to tax business, now that we can do it by a one vote margin.

So they’ll tax business and the price of the product will go up and the people will blame the storekeeper for the rise in the price of the product, not recognizing that all he’s doing is passing on to them a hidden sales tax.

If people need any more concrete explanation of this, start with the staff of life, a loaf of bread. The simplest thing; the poorest man must have it. Well, there are 151 taxes now in the price of a loaf of bread–it accounts for more than half the cost of a loaf of bread. It begins with the first tax, on the farmer that raised the wheat. Any simpleton can understand that if that farmer cannot get enough money for his wheat, to pay the property tax on his farm, he can’t be a farmer. He loses his farm.

And so it is with the fellow who pays a driver’s license and a gasoline tax to drive the truckload of wheat to the mill, the miller who has to pay everything from social security tax, business license, everything else. He has to make his living over and above those costs. So they all wind up in that loaf of bread. Now an egg isn’t far behind and nobody had to make that. There’s a hundred taxes in an egg by the time it gets to market and you know the chicken didn’t put them there!

~Ronald Reagan~
I poked it with a stick..........
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Postby caseydog » Fri Mar 06, 2009 3:05 pm

I did a google search on "150 taxes on a loaf of bread," and as expected, it was quite an exercise in mental gymnastics.

If you count the taxes paid by the steel-worker who made the steel used by John Deere to build the tractor used to plow the wheat field where the wheat for that bread loaf were grown, then you can find endless taxes to tie to that loaf of bread.

And, let's not forget the huge farm subsidies paid out to agribusiness each year. If we cut those out of the federal budget, that would cut about $35 billion in federal spending. But that, too, would cause an increase in the price of a loaf of bread.

And since most of the farm subsidies go to big agribusiness, not the "family farms" we think they are going to, they are an example of corporate welfare. We basically tax businesses with one hand, and give them handouts with the other. Plus, when you cut corporate taxes, prices don't necessarily go down -- for big, publicly traded corporations, tax cuts mean that profits go up, which supports higher stock prices, which leads to larger executive bonuses.

Getting back to the stimulus plan, at least the spending for the construction of schools, roads and other infrastructure will end up providing us with the schools, roads and other infrastructure that we actually need. And, it will take labor to build those schools, roads and other infrastructure, which means jobs.

Or, we could try cutting corporate taxes and capital gains taxes (again) and help Warren Buffet get even richer and pay and even lower percentage of his income in taxes. And, the middle class will be stuck where it has been for decades -- with stagnating wages, higher costs of living, and the same tax burden as before.

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Postby Todah Tear » Fri Mar 06, 2009 3:20 pm

Can anyone tell me where we are getting all these Billions of dollars that we keep giving GM and AIG! Are they just making it up? Is it real or imaginary? Either way, they need to take a few of those Billions and just pay off the mortgages of anyone on the brinks of loosing their homes 1st, then purchase homes for those who lost their homes to foreclosure because most folks who have paid on a mortage at least 10 years has shelled out the purchase price of their homes in interest. As for me, I'll keep paying my mortgage as long as I can, but lets get hard working Americans "back" into a house!

That's my 2 cents contribution to the stimulus of the economy.

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Postby caseydog » Fri Mar 06, 2009 3:59 pm

Todah Tear wrote:Can anyone tell me where we are getting all these Billions of dollars that we keep giving GM and AIG! Are they just making it up? Is it real or imaginary? Either way, they need to take a few of those Billions and just pay off the mortgages of anyone on the brinks of loosing their homes 1st, then purchase homes for those who lost their homes to foreclosure because most folks who have paid on a mortage at least 10 years has shelled out the purchase price of their homes in interest. As for me, I'll keep paying my mortgage as long as I can, but lets get hard working Americans "back" into a house!

That's my 2 cents contribution to the stimulus of the economy.

Todah


The money for this stuff is borrowed money. The decision to bail out these entities comes down to trying to predict what is worse, a higher deficit, or the failure of these entities.

Nobody knows for sure exactly what would happen if GM files for bankruptcy. So, you have to look at the possible outcomes, and measure the risks against the costs, and make a decision.

That's where ideological statements like, "let them fail" or "nobody bails me out if I fail" fall flat. The consequences of GM failing could possibly push us from recession to depression, since so many businesses and individuals are tied to GM in one way or another.

That's the gut wrenching thing for me. I hate that we are being asked bail these banks and businesses out after THEY made poor business decisions and got themselves into this mess. But, if we don't do it, are we cutting off our proverbial noses to spite our faces.
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Postby Elumia » Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:22 am

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Postby MsDana » Sat Mar 07, 2009 4:57 pm

:cry:
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Postby caseydog » Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:33 am

Nitetimes wrote:If you'd like to see where some of this money is going check this site out. It has state by state money grabs (ok, they call them projects) listed.
I saw a few in PA they in my opinion are really stupid.....but that's my opinion.

Stimulus Watch

I didn't read the whole site Glenn so I have no idea who put this out...don't really care.... but I have heard of some of these projects previously so I have no reason to believe any of them are BS. Just found it interesting to see where the money is going.

Looks like NH (0), W VA (1), DE (7) and DC (8) need to get on the ball, they're way short on projects, of course DE and DC's 15 projects aren't cheap


The authors of the site seem credible, from what I could find.

I can't comment on projects other than ones in my area, since I actually know what these projects are all about.

One of the bigger projects in my area is the new water pipeline from Lake Tawokanee to my area, which will create 450 of jobs, and it is something we definitely need since the Dallas area population is outgrowing it's water supply very rapidly. We have water rationing in dryer summers because the local lakes we draw from can't keep up with demand from a rapidly growing population.

The IH-30 Bridges project is good for 2,450 jobs, and that is a major corridor with a lot of very old sections and bridges.

The projects in my own town looked pretty legit -- although I'm not sure why we need an armored vehicle. The chart shows no jobs created by any of them. That seems odd, since the work won't do itself. There must be missing data.

One project is 100 yards from my house. It will turn an old two lane blacktop road with drainage ditches into a four-lane divided roadway with storm sewers. That roadway stretches all the way across town, and this short section is the only two-lane section, which creates a bottleneck. That project has been delayed for about ten years due to lack of state funding (it is classified as a state highway).

Good site. Seems non-political, to me.
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Postby greg755 » Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:09 pm

CD
You town needs an armored vehicle to keep your money safe, so the feds don't steal it :lol:
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Postby caseydog » Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:11 pm

greg755 wrote:CD
You town needs an armored vehicle to keep your money safe, so the feds don't steal it :lol:


What money? :(
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Postby caseydog » Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:30 pm

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Postby caseydog » Mon Mar 09, 2009 8:50 am

I think everyone will identify with this Letterman segment -- especially the part about the financial news networks...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9d6HJXWjKc
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