I hope you're sitting down...deferring the tax cut to upper 1% would

[lindashaw]

save over $400 billion dollars, Mark Shields just said on "Capitol Gang."

Am I the only one that didn't know that the wealthy Bush friends got over $400 billion in just one tax cut? It's obscene! It's...I can't believe it! I feel sick.

[disgruntella]

1. i was sitting down...

... it didn't help ;)

Obscene is definitely the word for it. :mad:

[aquart]

2. Financial pornography.

A good way to describe Bushco economics.

[disgruntella]

8. i expect much more satisfaction

from pornography! ;)

[fujiyama]

26. More like financial rape!

and all of us either at the middle or at or near the bottom are getting it in the arse!

[PROGRESSIVE1]

3. Sitting Down didn't stop me from...

screaming at the T.V!!!!!!! But let us all give a thank you to Mr. Sheilds for giving us the TRUTH!!!

[Cheswick2.0]

4. just imagine what could be done with that money

it is sickening to think what is going on now.

[saigon68]

17. Could have fixed a school or 2

Maybe hired a teacher too. !!!

[Clete]

5. Tax cuts for the wealthy.

It isn't like we didn't tell the freepers that all they were going to get would be less that $500. Now they have a heap of debt on top of it.

[NNN0LHI]

6. The problem is that about 30% of Americans think they are in that 1% n/t

[alcuno]

9. There was a poll done on this; I was considering it for a bumper

sticker. 19% of those surveyed indicated that they were in the top 1% tax bracket. We are so ignorant in this country that we are a danger to ourselves and others.

[indepat]

13. And another 20-or-so% think the neocon policies are good for them

and America.

[VolcanoJen]

16. Spot on, NNNL0LHI.

You're exactly correct. The neocons have been very successful at making the electorate think they're part of the club...

[PROGRESSIVE1]

21. Yes and many of them are....

white, middle class, men who think that $85,000 a year puts them in the Wall Street Economic League! :eyes:

A "sort of freind" of mine in high school said that he and his family are Republicans because they are the party of wealth and he considered himself to be in that group! He was certainly no FReeper! A very liberal/libertarian person on social issues and openly admired Martin Luther King Jr. for his great part in the fight for civil rights and believed that the drug laws should be repealed!

By the way his father is an electrician! A well paying job indeed but I told him that he was no Rockefeller and chances are that he will never be one nor will 99.95% of we DUers!



:silly:

[teryang]

23. That is an interesting number you chose

Because you are right to classify it as middle class. IMHO that is the amount of money you need to create what is a modest life for a small family. The funny thing is that disability, unemployment or other mishap will not prevent such a family from slipping in bankruptcy, losing their medical insurance and their modest standard of living.

The idea that this sort of income is in the upper 1 percent is ludicrous. At this income level, you are still plagued with ever increasing taxes, insurance, and bills which threaten to topple you into economic hardship. These are the people working the increased hours for a job they are enjoying less and less. They can barely afford to send their children to college. One of the perception distortions depends on the age of the earner. Young white collar workers employed for far less almost invariably see a rosy future ahead. If you realize that your situation will be basically unchanaged economically 20 years into the future despite an apparent growth in income you begin to understand what the problem is.

This is also the group of people that have taken a whipping in the equity markets and will lose the most from the pilferage of social security revenues to fund the likes of Dyncorp, Bechtel, Halliburton, Carlsyle and company. By supporting the neocons and their policies they are destroying themselves and their families future.

While many others suffer more from less fortunate lives, the standard of living has declined so much in America that experienced college educated (including advanced degrees) white collar professionals in the so called peak earning years, now make the equivalent or less of what working class union members earned in the sixties and sweat their jobs for fear of what will happen to their families should they become unemployed. The plight of working class americans expected to live on miserable wages and intermittent employment is even more intolerable. It is a banana republic.

[unblock]

7. figuring the minimum salary for the top 1% as $333,000,

and the top tax rate going from 39.6% to 33%, the MINIMUM tax savings for EACH person in the top 1% is $21,978. so it's about 22,000.

now divide $400,000,000,000 by 22,000 to get the number of people in the top 1% assuming each got the minimum tax break: 181,818.

hmmmm ... 181,818 ... now where have i seen a number like that before???? :tinfoilhat:

[papau]

10. smile ! :-)

I did not see it coming - very cute!

:-)

[PROGRESSIVE1]

20. If you are making $500,000 a year as a corporate exec.....

then I would say that you could afford to give your country $30,000 or so! After all this country has been very, very good to you and you rich should give something back!

[TacticalPeek]

11. No $hame, with interest.

[E_Zapata]

12. *gulp*

lessee -

Reverse the taxcut

let's give $2 billion to each state with no strings attached - just rebuild your schools, socialized medicine, and highways.

The remaining $250 billion - surely we need that for something.

This is obscene.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

14. $250B ought to buy

a nice new set of hubcaps for America.

[Fridays Child]

15. Thanks, Mark. I'm happy that your Capitol Gang members were told.

Now it might be nice for the country to hear this little factoid on the nightly news. Could you pass it on to Paula, Aaron, Wolfie, and Lou?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

18. and

Tommy, Petie and Danny.


Hallelujah, MP.

[w4rma]

19. Resource distribution in America

The top 1% wealthiest households in America own at least 38.1% of all the wealth in America. The Great Depression happened when 44.2% of all the wealth in America was owned by the top 1%.

The bottom 90% of American households own less than 30% of America's wealth.
The bottom 40% of American households own 0.2% of America's wealth.

http://www.ufenet.org/research/wealth_charts.html

Big buisnesses (owned by those in the top 1%) are running small buisnesses out of buisness. Big buisnesses are now leaving the country and taking their wealth with them. Run a small buisness and you have to pay high taxes. Run a big one and you can incorporate in the Cayman Islands, thereby avoiding federal taxes, and shop around in all 50 states for the one that will pay the board members the most to move there.

[Deja Q]

22. Wow, that would ALMOST pay for the gigantic deficit that shithead* made!

Incompetant felcher, that's what he is...

[ProudGerman]

24. With that kind of money

You could:

make 400,000 people millionaires (btw, how many homeless people in this country?)
colonize Mars
buy 16,000,000 Toyota Camry's, loaded Camry's
buy 66 million pounds of gold
build 10,000,000 homes for Habitat for Humanity



It's gut wrenchingly obscene to think about the money that is simply being horded. All that money can be had without hurting the lifestyle of the obscenely rich one bit. Bill Gates could cough up a few billion and not notice it, not one iota of difference to his lifestyle. (but he has given billions to charity each year) There are plenty of people in this country that could have 75 percent of their wealth "redistributed", and it wouldn't hurt their lifestyle......what am I talking about, that's socialism and unAmerican.


*shaking head in disgust*

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

25. I opt for the 66M pounds of gold.

America is still a relatively young country. We'll get there. (Maybe)













(I hope)

[AP]

27. There has been an 800 billion dollar shift from surplus to defecit

in 3 years. That's in annual dollars, so it's probably over a 1.2 trillion dollar giveway, and it looks like most of it was tax breaks to the rich.

This has been a smash and grab administration and they're going to leave behind a banana republic.