The actual AP article “Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax” is slightly more informative than the usual RW-shouter suspects would like you to believe. But Jim Newell at Wonkette has the best short-form rebuttal for those emails from the low-information voters among your friends and loved ones:
The right — and yes, the Heritage Foundation has its insightful quotes all over this — love to take this data and claim, “half the country pays no taxes.” They pay their payroll taxes, and state taxes, and local taxes, and mortgage payments ,and insurance premiums, and whatever else that other people CAN AFFORD WITH ALL OF THEIR MONEY. How much do people primarily earning from large capital gains pay in federal income tax, btw?
__
All that this statistic shows — and yes, deductions and credits may be over the top at the moment, but it’s a fucking great depression is why — is how wide the wealth gap has become here, because 50% of the country absolutely needs most every cent to maintain the basic consumption levels required to keep this economy propelling forward. Want to spread the tax base more broadly? Spread the wealth, baby!
__
If we could just find useful jobs for people to do instead of telling them to drain the equity for their homes every year, maybe some of these wacky wacky statistics would resolve themselves.
stuckinred
the swines
cleek
i’d like to see a line graph which shows the average effective income tax rate vs income.
i got a feeling it’d have a nice bell-curve shape to it.
geg6
Well, I know that I, personally, am not a member of the 50% who pay nothing. And I barely make it on what I make.
How much did Exxon pay in taxes last year? Until I hear a number substantially higher than 0, I really don’t want to hear about how some poor single working mom doesn’t pay taxes.
John Cole
It won’t matter. The response will be “I have to pay all those too!”
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Wrong statistic. Wingnut corporate armies of tax dodge lawyers and wingnut welfare recipients are the scoflaws . I don’t care if Joe Blow makes a few bucks on the side paid in cash to make ends meet. Corporate tax evading whores and their keepsakes in congress are the right statistic.
And yes, I know this article is from 2004. It is even more true today however.
Pangloss
If you make $10,000 a year and spend it all in a state with a 6% sales tax, you pay 6% of your income in state sales taxes.
If you make $10,000,000 a year and only spend $500,000 of it in a state with 6% sales tax, you pay three tenths of one percent of your income in state sales taxes.
There are similar examples of extreme regressivity when it comes to social security taxes, user fees, tolls, property taxes, and capital gains.
Dr. I. F. Stone
At the end of the day, the facts support the proposition that this increasingly is a nation of dead beats. They pay no federal income taxes and yet want to get all of their health care and retirement costs paid for them by the productive members of society. Fuck’em.
Violet
@geg6:
Exxon can show you plenty of taxes they pay. Problem is, they won’t also show you the tax credits they get. One cancels out the other, but they don’t like talking about that part.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
And fuck you too, shit for brains.
trollhattan
@Pangloss:
Yup, there’s a reason that flat-taxers and national sales-taxers tend to be in the…upper income tiers.
stuckinred
@Dr. I. F. Stone: And you, sir, may suck a big green weenie.
Allan
I’m confused.
Aren’t taxes evil?
Isn’t evading them the goal of Ayn Rand?
Haven’t the poor simply gone Galt?
jl
Slightly off-topic, but Talkingpointsmemo reports another wingnut taken in for attempts, or threats of violence.
The guy in the story below was planting pipe bombs because…
“It does appear that there were two motives: one, that he was disenchanted with the federal government, and, two, he was disenchanted with an individual who he perceived that had wronged him,”…
TPMMuckraker
Prosecutor: East TX Man Distributed Pipe Bombs Because Of Anger At Government
Justin Elliott | April 8, 2010, 12:40PM
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/prosecutor_east_tx_man_distributed_pipe_bombs_beca.php?ref=fpa
A day or so ago, the mom of one of the guys accused of threatening Congresspeople said he was mentally unstable and got all his news from Fox News and other wingnut outlets.
A few days before that, TPM reported that one of the Hutaree militia was mad at local cops because they would not intervene after his mom took away his gun. Was that one of the reasons Hutaree was planning on killing some local cops? They would not come to one of their members’ house (A GoldenTrooper, or Zagnut, or whatever) and make his mommy give his gun back?
To make this comment on-topic, I wonder how much income tax these dudes pay?
Robert Waldmann
What that statistic shows is that, in the great American class war, if this isn’t the beginning of the end it is the end of the beginning.
Why the hell should the government tax most people. Most people are struggling to make ends meet. The government should take only from those who have more than they need. There is plenty of money there for generous social welfare and all the defence we need.
If the effect is that the majority doesn’t feel that government spending has to cost them personally, that is exactly the way it it should be. It is the truth. Time people learned.
Now I said the end of the beginning. It will take decades, maybe centuries to get the majority of US citizens to see the plain fact that the income tax is not a big problem for them. But some day, the people will wake up and the Republicans will be totally fu.. scre.. uh taxed.
Pigs & Spiders
Thanks for reminding me I still need to file my state taxes!
/scurry
Dr. I. F. Stone
From the comments of Stuck and stuckinred, it appears that my comments struck a nerve. Apparently those two are among the non tax paying deadbeats who want the rest of us to subsidize for the remainder of their sorry lives. Fuck ’em.
stuckinred
@Dr. I. F. Stone: Fuck you asshole. I’ve paid income taxes since I went in the goddamn Army in 1966. Take your weak fucking bullshit somewhere else.
jl
The blog is so far above my head some days, I can’t tell whether the trolls are real trolls or are just outrageous spoofs.
I hope some kind hearted B-J reader can explain how to tell which is which.
Dr. I. F. Stone
@jl:
Stuckinred is just a moron who can barely type. Pay it no mind.
Ash Can
@jl: If they pay any income tax at all, then they’re obviously more productive members of society than any of the working poor.
/Dr. I. Fake Stone
cleek
troll is trolling
Brent
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
Nah, ya didn’t strike any nerves around here. We just don’t like you flopping your tiny cock on our computer screens.
Little Dreamer
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
I got news for you, the deadbeats are the corporate CEO’s who live in gated communities, not the little guy.
I was aware of this corporation non-tax structure when I was growing up in Delaware (it’s been going on there for years). The thing I thought was really strange was that Delaware also didn’t have a sales tax (I believe this is still true, but I haven’t lived there in years). The entire state was run by banking/credit card companies and DuPont interests.
geg6
@cleek:
Here, I’m sure you can find what you’re looking for here:
http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/american_income_taxation.htm
SpotWeld
Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax”
The implication there is that it’s all the low-income side of the population that’s a lucky-duckie.
I wonder how many of those households are high-income and are able to tax-shelter, off-shore, loop-hole and otherwise shift the money to someplace where they need not be bothered with taxes.
Mark S.
If only there were some economic statistic we could use to see if the rich have been getting richer and to compare our income inequality to the rest of the world.
But there probably isn’t. Sorry, we’re out of time, we’ll have to leave it there.
geg6
@jl:
The ignorant fuck who dishonors Izzy Stone is a troll of the worst sort. Stupid, mean, and purposely insulting to the memory of a great man and the relative of our own dear aimai.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
Dr. Stone is right. The dead beats in this nation need to learn a lesson that working 40+ hours a week at minimum wage in no way prevents them from being referred to as “dead beats”. Even if you awake before dawn, take public transportation to the job, spend 8+ hours on your feet, do heavy lifting, and take public transportation back home, you’re still a dead beat because you don’t have a second job, or dividends from investments. And, if your good-for-nothing wife decides to stay home with young children instead of paying $25K/year for 2 kids in daycare, that’s your problem and don’t expect any handouts like S-Chip or Medicaid or reparations, because you’re probably black, or at best, a minority.
The
blacks and Mexicansdead beats in this nation need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, or discover they’re related to some blue blood who could get them a well paying job writingpropagandaon policy and politics at the National Review or LA Times.Little Dreamer
@Robert Waldmann:
All we need is our version of Marie Antoinette saying “Let them eat cake”?
Right-wingers would agree with her, and they’re the one currently considered sector to have a penchant for violence in this population.
Dems are going to sit and debate it, like we always do.
meander
The Sacramento Bee has a similar-feeling article, with a leading bullet point that the rich pay most of California’s income taxes: “Residents earning north of $200,000 control 39 percent of the state’s income, but pay 66 percent of its income taxes.” OK, but how much of the total taxes do they pay? Or, what percentage of income is taken by income, sales, property, and other taxes across different income categories? Despite the progressive feeling of the rich “pay 66 percent of its income taxes,” I doubt that the progressivity carries all the way across the tax burden and wouldn’t be surprised if poor households pay a higher percentage of their income in overall taxes. Has any California outlet performed such an analysis?
cleek
@geg6:
wow. that’s a lot of graphs!
Linda Featheringill
Oh, dear. Now I am in a quandary about whether to defend the working people who are still too poor to pay federal income tax [although they still have to pay for FICA]. If I do that, I run the risk of incurring Dr. Stone’s displeasure.
On the other hand, I REALLY don’t want to put myself in a position where I am explaining myself to a $%^@^# like the good doctor.
What to do, what to do?
Please excuse me while I talk this over with my oldest cat so I can get some good advice.
geg6
@cleek:
I knew you’d like it. ;-)
Little Dreamer
@geg6:
We’ve had this conversation before. The jerk just wanted to shock us with a repeat. Ignore it.
Ben
So the right wingers are basically arguing that Americans should be paying more taxes now? So hard to keep up with their arguments!
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
It struck the poseur troll can die in a fucking fire nerve.
JGabriel
Malcolm McLaren is dead. Pinkerton’s the name. God Save The Queen.
.
stuckinred
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: And I kant type good.
Martin
Steve Jobs pays no federal income taxes. I’m pretty sure that Warren Buffet doesn’t either. Lazy fuckers.
Linda Featheringill
Question: What the study is saying is that 50% of working people in this country are too poor to pay federal income taxes?
And combined with the unemployed and the absolutely down and out folks, about half or more of the country is poor?
Is that what it is saying?
James F. Elliott
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
Doctor — of proctology, I presume? — you don’t have a fucking brain in your head. What do you think sales taxes and payroll taxes pay for? Half of all filers don’t pay income tax either because their deductions and credits eliminate the dues, OR THEY DON’T MAKE ENOUGH FUCKING MONEY TO OWE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Ye gods and little fishes, must I suffer the stupid so?!
geg6
@JGabriel:
Beat me to it. As an old and unrepentant punk chick from the very start, I haz a sad.
Never mind the bollocks.
By the way, John Lydon was on Jimmy Kimmel last night.
Martin
Oh, and let’s not forget all of the retirees whose income isn’t taxable too. They too are lazy fuckers, even though their health insurance and retirement were paid by them through their payroll taxes for all of those years. They’re still lazy fuckers.
Captain Haddock
Can’t we just hate paying taxes without blaming others who are in worse shape than us? I am not upset that a family of 4 making $50K pays less than me – they’ve got their own problems. But damn do I get steamed this time of year.
Omnes Omnibus
@ JGabriel at 36
It’s a swindle.
PeakVT
@cleek: I have a (dated) chart of effective rates here.
jibeaux
I remember once reading about this kind of thing at Reason. I know, but I didn’t have a sharp stick at hand to poke myself in the eye with, and the walls aren’t really hard enough to hurt a head as solid as mine too much. It just kills me how fundamentally different, and when I say different I mean fucked up, the view point is. The basic viewpoint is that there should always be some fairly high to 100% percentage of people paying federal income taxes — go figure, they’re supposed to hate taxes — and that it signals something fundamentally unstable about our government when there’s all these people “escaping” taxes, that if the wealthy are bearing most of the tax burden than that means society is unfair and unstable. We’ve had a progressive, or semi-progressive income tax code since forever, will there ever come a year when they will just accept the fucking idea? And is there any conception of the idea that maybe what’s destabilizing about the wealthy bearing more of the tax burden is that it indicates that the wealthy have all the damn money? I mean, take a country along the lines of Mexico. Large poor and working class, small middle class, small wealthy class. I assume that almost all income tax revenue in Mexico comes from the wealthiest Mexicans — and THAT’S the inequality? How bassackwards is that?
jibeaux
Nope. No feed troll.
cleek
i don’t get it. where’s the advantage to the GOP in that? who am i supposed to resent ?
jibeaux
@PeakVT:
Holy cow.
some other guy
When the top 20% hold 80% of the wealth I’m not going to shed any tears for them having to pay most of the taxes.
Anyway, according to this 2007 CBO report, when you include federal payroll and excise taxes, even the lowest quintile does pay taxes.
Ugh
They paid at least $6 billion in sales and use taxes in the United States in 2009, if you believe their 10-K. As for federal income taxes, they got a refund of $156 million in 2009, but paid more than $3 billion in 2008 and a similar amount in 2007, again according to their 2009 10-K.
Dr. I. F. Stone
They should change the name of this blog to something like: “Deadbeat Haven,” or perhaps, “Home of the Losers,” or “Worthless Shits.”
Zifnab
Wait, maybe I’m confused here. Are they saying 50% of the population ends up owing on their taxes, or 50% of the population doesn’t get every dime they paid in back as a refund?
I don’t know anybody at my office getting his entire balance back (biased sample, I know). And if you owe on your taxes, it means you simply didn’t withhold enough. Whoopdie do.
If 50% of the population is getting every dime on the return back, either we’ve got some absolutely crazy deductions floating around or – holy shit! After taxes, 50% of the country is BELOW THE POVERTY LINE. That’s a fucking horrible statistic. 3rd World Country. Bad, bad, bad. What on earth are you thinking, raging over people that are by definition in poverty, not paying enough in taxes.
And isn’t this kinda the goal of the zero tax crowd? You want to pay lower taxes – congratulations, large swaths of the country are paying lower taxes. This is what you ASKED FOR. Now you’re complaining that too many people got a tax cut? Are you f-king kidding me?
cleek
Dr. I. F. Stone sure likes that pie !
geg6
@Zifnab:
As I mentioned the other day, I make less than $40,000 AGI. I pay 25% plus $4600. My refund this year was a whopping $700. I’d like to know how many wealthy people pay 25% plus of their AGI. Bet you won’t find any.
cleek
@Zifnab:
they’re saying 47% either paid no Federal taxes because they didn’t make enough, or they got a full refund through deductions, exceptions, etc.. two different groups.
jibeaux
I keep telling John, until we get a plan up in here that’s got at least decent medical and preferably something for dental — all that pie rots your molars, you know — we’re just never going to attract quality trolls, even in this economy.
daryljfontaine
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
We don’t see enough of you, Makewi, and Sanka to rename this blog in your honor.
D
Ugh
@geg6:
Probably several hundred thousand, though I guess it depends on what you mean by wealthy.
dmsilev
@Dr. I. F. Stone: Can we get better trolls? Please? Between BOB and this one, the quality is seriously lacking. John needs to explore alternate troll providers. Google TrollSense perhaps?
dms
licensed to kill time
__
Then Dr. I.M. Stoned would totally fit in!
Scott
I reckon most people pay more than their share of income tax. That’s why they get a refund.
I’m assuming the article claims that people who get a refund don’t actually pay income tax, right? I’ve heard that a few times…
cleek
@dmsilev:
maybe JC could see if RentATroll has a plan in his price range.
JGabriel
@geg6: Somehow, I forgot that McLaren was about 3-4 years ahead of Paul Simon in, depending on your POV, exploiting / popularizing mbanqua. Here’s a little Soweto and Double Dutch from Malcolm.
.
SGEW
@licensed to kill time: That is unnecessarily unfair to stoned people, you know.
mingo
I would like to drop out of lurkage to say – no, I most emphatically do not hate paying taxes. I like living in civilization, and taxes are the dues you pay to live in a civilized society.
You will pay, one way or another. If not taxes, then most of your income, and possibly your nubile 13-year-old daughter, to the local warlord.
licensed to kill time
@SGEW:
My apologies to all the stoned people out there for lumping them in with the bad doctor. If it was 4:20 where I am, I would not have made such an egregious error.
Comrade Dread
Shh… stop using logic to refute this nonsense.
We need to encourage Republicans to run on a platform of tax hikes for the lower 50% on the salary scale, and tax breaks on the upper 10%.
This can only lead to permanent Republican majorities.
Ejoiner
OK, here’s my proposal then. We’re currently at 50% deadbeat sponging off the upper 5% or so. Let’s go for broke – if we can get it to a 99% vs. 1% ratio (or close to it) that means most of of us won’t have to work and we’ll get everything for free!! Ethically it’s troublesome but I’d vote to enslave the super-wealthy 1% if it meant bon-bons and beaches for the rest of us!
bloodstar
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
I know you’re bitter, but it’s not my fault your investments were in Greece!
kdaug
@Robert Waldmann:
It’s the end of the beginning.
Zifnab
@geg6: @cleek: Wow, sure enough.
If you own a home, have two kids, and rack up enough state and local taxes, I guess you could get all your money back at that.
I’m still paying in. So if the Heritage Foundation thinks they’re going to raise my taxes, they can go shove a fork in it.
Micah616
“Dr I. F. Stone” exists solely to remind us that conservatives are only successful at doing things that piss liberals off. They can’t govern. They can’t form and stick to a coherent political philosophy outside of dog whistles and resent. They damn sure can’t defend the country. All they can do is gum up the works and piss us off. Pathetic.
jibeaux
O/T, but I am trying to book something in NOLA which is a bike tour called Confederacy of Cruisers. They are a little vague as to “times” and such and you’re supposed to contact them through a form. My email copy of the contact form was sent to me through WordPress. I’m fucked, aren’t I? Anything else I should do in NOLA? Short trip. Planning on cemetery through Save our Cemeteries, walking, bike tours, food, drink. Cheers.
Church Lady
@jibeaux: I don’t think most people resent the progressiveness of our federal income tax system – I know I don’t. Those that earn more should pay a higher percentage. However, if you have a job, that pays income above the federal poverty level, you should have to pay something, even an amount as small as 1%. Everyone should have some skin in the game. And no, State, Local, Medicare and Social Security taxes do not count toward paying the ever ballooning federal outlay that doesn’t include Social Security and Medicare. If you want the bennies, pay something.
Paula
OT, but isn’t anyone here going to mention our government’s plan to assassinate an American citizen in Yemen? Lest you be accused of being part of the general Obot silence on the issue.
I’m pretty flummoxed as to why Mr. Constitutional Law professor would approve this, honestly.
Chyron HR
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
Here’s a little secret for our Republican readers: “Entitlement” programs exist for the benefit of the rich, not the poor. They are what dissuade the poor from, uh, killing you and taking all your stuff.
For all that righties jack off to “The Trees”, they don’t seem to notice that little parable didn’t end well for the mighty oaks.
freelancer
I went through this in detail with my parents last night, and it was thoroughly disappointing. They are legitimately center-right, low-info, high-apathy voters. My mom’s sister started texting them, telling them to watch Hannity cause Palin was on. She texted back, “What’s Hannity and who’s Palin?” (She knows Palin, but not Hannity) and that just set my aunt off. My aunt, I’ve mentioned before is super-Wingnut.
But this digressed to the point of “Well you’re just as bad as her, but on the other side!”, and then looking at me with DEEP skepticism, saying “Obama’s not going to get re-elected! (what are you crazy?)”
“Why’s that?”
“Because of what he’s doing to this country!”
“And what is that exactly?”
“Giving away healthcare to everybody, and making those who do pay taxes buy healthcare.”
“Well he’s expanding the safety net, and that’s going to drive down costs, it’s actually fairly popular, especially if you own or work for a small business.”
“Whatever, Nick. You have no idea how much taxes we pay and it’s just going to those who are doing nothing.”
“Well the federal government usually only has sway over federal taxes, so blaming Obama for property tax, boat tax, state sales tax, etc is stupid, and as far as federal income tax is concerned, yours went down for 2009.”
“Well, that may be the case, but it doesn’t mean I can’t be miffed that my taxes are supporting people who just take advantage of the system.”
And I begin to get it. Even with unemployment and the recession wreaking havoc on the middle class, people like my parents would just assume dismantle every social safety net so that some (minority) welfare queen wouldn’t be sucking off their tit. My dad jumped in and mentioned it’s about disgust with fraud and government waste, so I threw Iraq in his face, and how waste and fraud weren’t new things since the year 2008. I’d rather see my tax dollars spend on a few cases of letting poor people have food stamps and a big screen than accidentally dropping a bomb on the wrong house in Baghdad and killing an entire family. Not to mention the pallets of cash that we just shrink-wrapped and dropped off, never to be found again.
They kind of STFU, but they still think I’m some kind of lefty, brainless, dogmatic ideologue that’s just as fringe as my aunt.
They’re great people and awesome parents, but they just weren’t raised to fight upwards, and instead they just look down on poor people (mostly minorities) for being the cause to all their ills.
I have a deep-seated fear that between Obama and Palin, people like my parents would fucking vote for Palin.
/RANT.
cleek
doesn’t it seem odd to berate individuals for the sin of doing what the tax laws say they should do ? if too many people are not required to pay “enough”, isn’t the problem with the requirement, and not those to whom the requirements apply ?
also, i wonder why more “conservatives” don’t get excited over the fact that entire states take in more Federal dollars than they pay ?
stuckinred
@jibeaux: Cafe Du Monde, Central Grocery muffuletta, Laissez les bon temps roule!
http://www.snugjazz.com/site/
cleek
@Paula:
i mentioned it yesterday.
Church Lady
@geg6: Wrong, kemosabe. You’ll find a lot of people, even those with houses and children, paying more than 25% of AGI. And you can count me as one of them. We haven’t done 2009 taxes yet, but pulled 2008 and we paid 26.5% of AGI. Amazingly enough, because our exemptions and deductions are so small, we paid 24.26% of TOTAL income. I’m now going to get a drink.
jibeaux
@Church Lady:
I’m sorry, but the formula for the federal poverty level hasn’t changed in forty years and it’s fucking lower than low. It isn’t anywhere near a living wage, and that’s why people on the lower end of the scale need — and spend — all their income. And let’s get past the moralizing and platitudes and annoying abbreviations like “bennies” for pete’s sake, what exactly would you propose to ensure that everyone pays something when the tax code has a thousand deductions — some other logistical nightmare from hell like the AMT?
mingo
they just KNOW that Reagan’s apocryphal welfare queen riding around in a cadillac is going to take their money. Many people think in stories and this one is unfortunately very pervasive.
Linda Featheringill
Hey, listen guys. Even people who do not pay federal income tax pay into Social Security and Medicare. Everybody.
So NONE of these folks are getting a free ride from either Social Security or Medicare.
Socratic_me
I prefer apple myself, Dr. Stone, although I did have a tasty slice of strawberry rhubarb last night.
Ejoiner
@Chyron HR:
I prefer “Bytor and the Snowdog” for my masterbutory pleasures :)
jibeaux
uh, almost all of the ballooning is because of Social Security and Medicare.
Allan
@freelancer: The good news is, you have 2 1/2 years to work on them before that election.
And if that doesn’t work, you still have time to incorporate a slow-acting toxin in the food gifts you bring when you visit.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Paula:
I look at it like the death penalty that I am against, but when some heinous murderers actually are executed, I don’t lose a wink of sleep.
The guy in question has been, and currently is spending his days concocting schemes to kill as many civilian westerners as he possibly can, and likely Arabs as well.
Arresting him in a foreign AQ stronghold is not really possible, and we are not the only ones trying to kill him before he directs his followers to slaughter more civilians, somewhere.
Unlike many liberals, I do believe it is a war against AQ. My problem is not being consistent in calling it that and accepting all that comes with it, including full Geneva protections and POW status for all captured persons, and all the attendant rights that come with that. Not calling it “a war” when it suits a particular purpose, and calling it something else when that suits another purpose.
Although the old saying the Constititution is not a suicide pact should be used very sparingly, in this case, imo, it applies.
I hope that answers your question, at least from this Obot.
Martin
And the number I found was that 21% of households are retirees, the vast majority presumably pay no income tax. So half of the so-called freeloaders are people that have already worked probably 45 years and paid their share into the system.
Brachiator
@meander:
One of the Wikipedia references on sales taxes includes a link to a resource called “Who Pays?,” which looks at all taxes paid by various income groups, in all 50 states.
The lowest income group (income less than $22,000) pays more in overall taxes than the richest group, and the bulk of what poorer households pay is composed of sales and excise taxes. The gap in total taxes paid in relation to income is not as great for other groups.
Also, quick and dirty, in California in 2007, 37% of tax revenue came from income taxes, 31% from sales taxes, and 24% from property taxes.
Uh, not necessarily. Credits and carryovers are funny things. At some point, your credit is paid for by someone else’s taxes. And don’t get me started on Net Operating Losses.
Comrade Dread
@Linda Featheringill:
Not to mention sales tax. Also, any higher prices on items due to tariffs, excise taxes, subsidies, or other Federal incentives.
Gasoline taxes. Vehicle licensing fees. Property taxes (even renters pay higher rates because of these). Telecommunications fees.
Very few people get a ‘free’ ride.
And if you wanted to end waste and fraud, you’d have to hire more government auditors to do it, which means, surprise, more taxes in the short term.
I honestly wish we had reporters who would call people out on this crap.
Any reporter who actually forced a Republican these days to define how exactly they would balance the budget while keeping taxes at today’s rates should get a Pulitzer.
Socratic_me
General E. is sure that this man is terrorist scum because the government has told him so. Because we haven’t had any instances show up in the last week of the government being a little overly broad in their interpretation of threats.
Which is to say, as long as the government isn’t eavesdropping without a warrant, we shouldn’t care if they execute without a trial.
freelancer
OT – This has been another edition of “What TNC said“.
babagordon
I’ll repost the comment I posted on the “Tax the upper crest” thread yesterday.
Most of the tax is paid by older workers, and double income families – wage earners. 95% of these people are by no means better than middle class, they live in expensive cities.
The Sacramento Bee article cited above is a prime example of putting up strawmen
“The Sacramento Bee has a similar-feeling article, with a leading bullet point that the rich pay most of California’s income taxes: “Residents earning north of $200,000 control 39 percent of the state’s income, but pay 66 percent of its income taxes.”
Huh? income stops at 200,000? If you delve deeper into it, you will find that the tax rates drop as your income rises into the millions.
The real gimmick behind this is the ceiling of Fed tax rates set at $373,650.
To see what that gimmick is, see the graph here.
http://www.mybudget360.com/how…..me-numbers
That shows the meaning of rich.
Bracketing those who earn $250K (about 6 times the median of $46 K median) with those who earn $1.6 million (35 times median)?
What you see is millionaire CEO’s and non-wage earners hiding behind the skirt of common senior professionals (wage-earners) like accountants, programmers, nurses etc. Most of these are double-earner families who effectively end up paying more than 50% in taxes (70K Fed, 20-22K state, 17 K payroll) and in childcare (10-20K)
This is not taxing those who earn that 1.6 million on average. The rich pay 20% on their investment income and live on expense accounts.
This taxing the rich is only taxing two sets of people – those who are senior enough to earn higher **wages**, and those who are professional wage earners living in cities.
The rich don’t have to pay taxes. That is why you wont see a 50% 40% bracket on income above $1 million. Nor would you see a 35% tax on capital gains. Those 1.6 million earners pay less than 20%. Billionaire hedge fund owners pay 15% on their income.
Sure these 250K earning families are better off – but it is ludicrous to term this as taxing the rich.
The 2009 income numbers are here. http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
The average income for a tax return in this top 0.1 percent is $7.4 million, while the average amount of income tax paid is $1.6 million
A tax rate of less than 22%.
This raising taxes on couples making more than 250K is taxing the rich. Yeah, right.
The media puts up this strawman — “people earning 250K plus are taxed heavily” and all the liberals jump on it.
The real truth – that taxes peak on incomes in the 350-400K range and then falls, – yes falls to about 20% – is lost in this argument.
Its like eating your own.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@freelancer:
Next time come armed with a pie chart of the federal budget. It’s funny how big those slices for the Pentagon, Social Security, Medicare, Homeland Security, and interest on the federal debt are, and how small the other slices are, especially the unpopular ones like foreign aid and congressional earmarks. Ask them exactly where they would cut and by how much. You can only get so far cutting back on HHS and foreign aid. Most people have no idea how heavily skewed the federal budget is towards taking care of granny and blowing shit up. If you had to sum up our federal spending in one sentence, it would be: geriatric Wylie E Coyote and the ACME bomb factory having fun with toys that go boom, paid for using revolving credit.
catclub
You know that social security lockbox that got busted open?
That was social security taxes going to pay for the REST
of the federal budget. Only this year, because wage earners are so bad off, it is going the other way.
But most years, your FICA was going to pay for the Iraq war
and all the other things in the federal budget, just like federal income taxes.
Enjoy!
David in NY
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Socratic_me:
He is welcome to give himself up and we can take it from there. I’m sure if he is innocent, he would welcome the opportunity to clear his good name. Specially since his other country his trying to kill or capture him too.
Paula
Dude, the word is coming down from the NSA and the CIA, with only Obama and his lawyers approving it. Is this something you trust @ face value? I’m not sure that this is a separate “issue” from all the other malfeasance resulting from our undefined goals and questionable justifications for tactics in the so-called war on global terror (which stretches from Abu Ghraib to the WikiLeaks video), but you can at least feel queasy about the fact that the POTUS just ordered an American citizen to be killed without a trial.
MikeJ
@David in NY: Funny how this asshole showed up here using this name after it came out that a regular commenter is related to Stone. Which in my book makes the use of the nym harassment, and if I had the banhammer (and I understand the reluctance to use it) I would swing away.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
How well will you sleep at night when President Palin has the power to arbitrarily order the assassination of an American citizen, for any reason and without due process? Precedent is both powerful and dangerous – remember that Addington and Yoo loved to cite FDR’s actions during WW2 to justify what Cheney wanted. If Obama does this, a future president will go even further. I’m with Paula #75 on this – this should be fought against tooth and nail, obots or not. In fact Obots should be fighting against this even harder, as it could be used as a basis for impeachment proceedings if the GOP takes back Congress, never mind the hypocrisy.
kay
@freelancer:
You could tell them that part of the idea here is mobility. We want people to earn up, over a working lifetime. That’s why we subsidize things like education, or, actually, health care. It’s a good investment, and it has to be free or subsidized at the outset for the bottom rung, because it won’t work otherwise.
I didn’t pay to establish my state university, or my Pell Grant, but someone sure as hell did, these things don’t just appear. I waltzed in there, but I was certainly aware that someone prior paid for it. I’m paying for the next guy up, because now I earn enough to pay income taxes. I’ll contribute way more over my working lifetime than I took at the outset. It was a good investment, IMO.
We don’t want people to stay low-earners over a lifetime. We want them to MOVE UP. It’s an aspirational system, and really always has been.
Ask your parents how they got to the point where they pay income taxes. I bet I can find some prior person’s income taxes subsidizing that rise.
MikeJ
@kay:
Not just moving up from zero to something, ask the born rich Bill Gates if he could have moved up to multibillionaire had he tried to found Microsoft in Somalia.
Omnes Omnibus
@ jibeaux Jambalaya and bloody marys at Coop’s Place. Great dive bar/restaurant in an interesting section of the Quarter.
kay
@MikeJ:
He actually doesn’t delude himself like that. I don’t know a thing about him other than a long interview I watched, but I was so pleased when he described himself as “lucky”. Honest person, IMO. I have always been aware that things I took advantage of were established somehow.
I do not understand people who go through life using all these taxpayer-funded institutions and things and just sort of blithely insist that they were there since the beginning of time, or that they “did it alone”. They weren’t, and they didn’t. Someone prior paid some taxes, and then I showed up! Just in time to PROFIT! :)
We seem to have somehow lost the whole long view. If everyone felt like modern conservatives, there wouldn’t be a state university system. There wouldn’t be anything that lasts, and grows, in a public sense. There seems to be no sense that maybe if you benefited, you should pay for the next round ‘o upward mobility. Keep this wheel turning, and all that.
Little Dreamer
It’s interesting that we’re having this conversation today, since this morning on my way home from work, I heard a commercial on the radio for John McCain’s senatorial campaign and how raising taxes during a recession is “tax abuse”.
Yeah, no money for the services that keep this country going, like keeping roads maintained, streetlights working, water flowing… the fact that we’re asking people who make enough to stick gobs of it in their bank accounts or investment portfolios is “abuse”.
I make so little that when I pay taxes, I’m spending money that would go for shampoo, food, cigarettes (yes, I know, that’s my choice to smoke, but this world is insane these days, give me some form of comfort).
I will never understand that mindset.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Okay, then, let’s let him be, and send a posse into his AQ stronghold and arrest him. And give him a chance to surrender. Or just do nothing, cause it’s too dangerous to bring him in for a proper trial.
And the evidence list is long with this guy, and not just our CIA and NSA. He is wanted by the world and there is no doubt that he is currently directing jihad against about everybody as well as his current country of residence, Yemen. Who btw are the ones trying to kill him and we are helping them.
So, by all means, let the dude go about his plans to blow shit and people up.. And start drawing up Obama’s impeachment articles. I don’t think, “just fighting against this” is sufficient from your concerns. Shit or get off the pot.,. Do what you think is right. Call for impeachment.
And I said I consider this a war, though sometimes police action is needed to fight it, and sometimes not, depending on the circumstances. And am well aware that is contrary to liberal doctrine and subject to scorn.
Splitting Image
Bruce Bartlett had a column about this a few weeks ago. He blamed the push to replace subsidies (“government handouts”) with tax breaks, and especially refundable tax credits, which were indistinguishable from subsidies but could be implemented by a political party claiming to support “limiting the size of government”.
The effect was to de-emphasize the idea of everyone contributing to the cost of running the government and promoting the idea that half of the country is contributing and the other half has their hands out.
Link here
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The other question I ask when somebody complains that federal taxes are too high today, is if you could change today’s taxes to be more like any period in past US history, what date would you pick?
If the answer is any date before 1917, then my response is: back then we had a regular standing army the size of Belgium, which was expanded during wartime only after hostilities had already broken out. Are you willing to go back to that sort of defense posture?
If the answer is the 1920s, then I bring up the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, and ask: do you want to live in an era with that sort of rampant speculation and economic instability?
If the answer is a date at any point after the Great Depression, then I point out that taxes were higher and more progressive then than they are right now, except for the brief period after the Bush 43 tax cuts, which were so economically unstainable that they had to come with a sunset clause just to pass them thru a Congress which was entirely controlled by Republicans, and the national debt doubled as a result, and ask: do you really think we can afford to do that again?
Chuck Butcher
Damn.
There are liars, damn liars, and statisticians. Lets just start with taxes, SS/FICA with the employer “contribution” are pushing 16% which is more than investment plutocrats pay in capital gains and cut off at a level that makes them immaterial to wealth. People who are retired for the most part aren’t part of the Fed tax paying base.
Taking a look at tax brackets should give one an idea of the behavior that is rewarded and what is penalized. Let me clue you, raping every possible cent out of the system is applauded very shortly above middle class.
Hey, you guys are real pros at tags, how about a hand with this? Blogwhoring doesn’t earn me a cent – no advertising.
Little Dreamer
I’m sorry, but if this guy is a member of AQ and he is planning/performing terrorism against the US, doesn’t that make him an enemy combatant and why should we protect someone who wants to do damage to this country and its citizens?
While I am not someone who is a proponent of the death penalty, I personally believe that an American who aligns with AQ shouldn’t be hiding behind his US citizenship (and neither should anyone else be advocating that he is being mistreated!).
A member of AQ knows the score, he shouldn’t expect to be treated as an American if he advocates the destruction of America.
JMHO.
Linda Featheringill
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
You win the Economics Prize for today!
stuckinred
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Why not just do it? There has to be some point of making this big deal about it with all this ink.
Brachiator
@MikeJ:
If Somalia was one of the 50 states, the answer is “probably yes.” Otherwise, this is an useless hypothetical.
@babagordon:
Just not true, and your link is bad.
You’re misreading the Sacbee article.
Mark S.
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
The corollary is what spending do you cut? Besides foreign aid (1% of the budget), most Americans don’t want anything cut.
OT, but I’m surprised Butler’s teenage coach signed a 12 year deal. I would imagine he’s a pretty hot commodity.
Socratic_me
Really, General E.? You can’t see why anyone under a kill order from the U.S. wouldn’t want to surrender and just “sort this out”? Moreover, given the extremely loose interpretation of “material support for terrorists” in play right now, would you really want to test the record for how quickly you could find your way to Gitmo or some other black sight as “dangerous but unprosecutable” even if you weren’t discretely killed?
And Little Dreamer, what does “aligned with al Queda” mean in this case? Does it mean the government says you are a terrorist? Does it mean you actively promote the view that the U.S. should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and those there have a right (or even obligation) to fight the American aggressors? If the man takes arms against the U.S. and we kill him in battle (actual battle), so be it. But thought crimes aren’t actual crimes and accusations from the government aren’t proof.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Little Dreamer:
I’m sorry but I must have been on vacation the week there was a public trial or some other equivalent form of due process in which this was determined as a matter of fact rather than mere speculation and gossip based on what the DOD, NSA and CIA feel like leaking to the press. Links please? Or have we repealed the 5th and 6th amendments already, to be point where an American citizen can be formally condemned to death and executed merely on the say-so of the POTUS?
kay
@kay:
Or, you could ask them if they benefit from low wage workers. They do, if they purchase products, or services. I mean, we could ask business to raise wages, and more people would pay income tax, but isn’t that going to cut down on consumption? Things would cost more, so we’d buy less. How would that affect their bottom line? Are their jobs perhaps dependent on a wage structure that means 25% of people don’t make enough to pay federal income tax? I know they can’t think having a low wage workforce without access to basic health care is humane, or reasonable, and we clearly need a low wage workforce. So, we raise wages (private picks up the cost) or we subsidize, and public picks up the cost.
HRA
@Martin:
Retirees pay income tax on SSI. I believe that was changed during Clinton.
Mark S.
I’ve heard arguments that giving more money to poor people stimulates the economy more than giving it to rich people. This intuitively makes sense, but have there been any studies proving it?
Cacti
Warren Buffet has a standing challenge to the members of the Forbes 400:
He will pay $1 million dollars to any member who has a higher effective tax rate on their annual income (Fed + payroll) than their receptionist.
This dates back to 2007 when Buffet publicized the fact that his mostly investment generated $46 million annual income was taxed at 17.7%.
His secretary, in contrast, paid 30% of her $60,000 per year annual salary.
The best any opponent of it could do was bitch about the Estate Tax (as if that had something to do with annual income taxes).
Little Dreamer
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Well, ABQ, I don’t know the specifics, but if he is plotting against America as a member of AQ, I don’t think he should be given that blanket of protection.
Do militias not have a right to fight against all enemies, foreign and domestic? Does this mean we should sit down every known American citizen who is plotting terrorism and ask them their feelings about America?
If he’s a member of AQ, he’s made his choice, it’s not like he doesn’t know that we’re at war with AQ. It’s only the biggest news on the entire planet since 9/11.
I don’t know that he’s a member of AQ, I haven’t read up on it, I’m simply stating that if he’s aligned with the enemy, he is an enemy combatant.
I also said it was JMHO (and I really don’t care if you agree).
Little Dreamer
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I wanted to clarify – I’m not sure that Obama has done this. I don’t trust a bunch of people coming in here saying he did this. I suspect there is information we’re not getting, although I am not saying it’s not possible.
I am simply stating what I believe about the situation – if we have proof he made a choice to align with AQ, he should live with the consequences.
cleek
we’re at war ? was there a declaration of some kind ?
Obama crossed the line with this. he’s a criminal.
kay
@Cacti:
There’s massive confusion about the estate tax. Half the people in this county believe they have paid it. They’re outraged. I can never get a straight answer. I think they’re talking about fees associated with land transfer, or probate costs? It’s a mystery. They’re not paying a federal estate tax, though. They’ve been completely bamboozled.
Brick Oven Bill
When performing electorate Mathematics, one needs to consider that only one in three Americans works.
This is a significant ratio.
Thus consumption, and not production, should be taxed.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
Melodramatic, but not quite on point. The point is that we did in fact arrive at an informal national consensus that if a person is clearly acting as an enemy combatant, he is not going to be entitled to the protections of the criminal justice system. I don’t necessarily agree that this represents repeal of the Constitutional grounds for those protections. To say that it does, throws the Constitution out with the bathwater.
I don’t think a coherent argument can be made that an actual enemy combatant ought to get Miranda rights and all the protections that go with them. So the matter rests on how we go about determining that a person is, or is not, an enemy combatant. In my opinion, this conundrum exposes a flaw in the law.
Most people will come down on the side of the innocent when we ask, should a guilty man go free or should an innocent man go to prison? However, when the subject is an enemy combatant, I think the consensus shift is pretty predictable, and away from protections.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that we agree that some people are enemy combatants and don’t deserve due process. Then the question comes down to, who is going to make that determination? Are we going to make the presidency just a tribunal operation and the president a prisoner of that process?
These are not easy questions, I suspect that any serious trip down the paths that these questions require us to take will result in admitting that Cheney and Bush had some of this right all along. How much, to what degree, and how the decisions get implemented, open to considerable question. But to pretend that this is easy and that any well formed policy is just trash because it doesn’t fit somebody’s adolescent view of Americaness is just bullshit.
PeakVT
When performing electorate Mathematics, one needs to consider that only one in three Americans works.
Lies.
Cacti
@kay: @kay:
There’s massive confusion about the estate tax. Half the people in this county believe they have paid it. They’re outraged. I can never get a straight answer.
It’s truly a testament to the power of the right wing echo chamber, that they’ve managed to get middle class voters upset about a tax that affects less than 0.3% of estates.
Little Dreamer
@cleek:
Cleek, you know damn good and well that if AQ was a state controlled military, we would have declared actual war on them. While I don’t agree with the way we handled Iraq, and I’m not sure I believe that Afghanistan should have been the intended target either (a great majority of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi, yet we enjoy diplomatic status with them and didn’t touch them at all, hmmm!) and I don’t like the way Bush pushed us into actions that were divisive and damaging to this country’s reputation, the fact is, we have been in an implied war with AQ for the last almost nine years. If you say you don’t know this, I can only say I don’t believe you.
__
The country for all intents and purposes believes we’re at war with AQ (even if I don’t agree that an actual state of war exists). I googled “we are at war with al Qaeda” and I got about 15,000,000 results. WTF are you telling me, you don’t know this?
You cannot hide behind the skirt of non-state sponsored terrorism to state we’re not in a major fight. While I was never one to believe that the loss of 3,000 citizens and some planes was enough to drive us into overreation and emotional acts of aggression over other nations (such as Iraq, who didn’t actually deserve it), you can’t say that we should not have any recourse over terrorists who are training to destroy our citizens and our infrastructure (and our country).
I call bullshit on this tactic.
AQ trains fighters with the intention of causing destruction to our government and our citizens. You know this. I’m not telling you anything new.
What next, you’ll be nominating Osama bin Ladin for a Nobel Peace Prize? WTF?
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
No need to argue over employment stats, here are they are:
Labor statistics for the masses.
Martin
@kay: No, they’ve paid the estate tax. You just don’t realize that they’re all zombies.
Ahasuerus
@cleek: I know, I just added him to the filter. Thank You! Mmmm, love that pie…
Omnes Omnibus
@ cleek:
From Reuters
To me, this this seems more like the guy is on an international 10 most wanted list. But what the fuck do I know, let’s impeach him.
Fighting non-state organizations is different than wars fought in the past. On the other hand, I don’t recall the US specifically declaring war on the Barabary States (please correct me if I am wrong). I am not saying whether this action is right or wrong at this point, but, for fuck’s sake, let’s not jump to assinine conclusions based on one or two articles from wire services.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Dr. I. F. Stone:
This would be a decent troll attempt somewhere else, maybe, where trolling and spoofing had not been elevated to elegant art forms.
Um, Social Security, one of the entitlements you disparage, rests entirely on contributions. The whole system is wired to pay back the retiree based on his contributions.
If you are unable to work, you may qualify for SSI, see this explanation. In any case, if you want to argue that disabled persons should be left at the curb to starve and die, that is your prerogative. Any coherent argument for that policy will of course be subject to examination and criticism, so take your time and craft it well.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well thank you very much, you have just made moot about two thirds of all the posts ever made on Balloon-Juice.
Party pooper.
Brick Oven Bill
Our friends at the Bureau of Labor Statistics has very effectively made the data harder to find in the past year. In this Employment Situation Report, overall numbers used to be tracked, as well as the numbers of government, teaching, and health care jobs (growing, growing, and growing), as well as construction and manufacturing jobs (shrinking and shrinking). I used to track this and I recall the number of jobs was just over 100 million.
Now the numbers have been removed from the tables and placed in unintelligible paragraphs.
If my recollections are wrong, which they usually aren’t, and PeakVT’s numbers are accurate, then the ratio is like 1:2.2 instead of 1:3.
In either case, consumption, and not production, should be taxed. This encourages hard work and thrift, two Teabagger values.
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus:
The US did declare war on the Barbary States in 1801 for violating the Treaty of Tripoli.
MikeJ
@Cacti: While Wikipedia is often incorrect, it says that the US did not declare war but instead used a AUMF.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
Brachiator
@HRA:
Not true. A portion of social security benefits may be included in other income, depending on your total income and filing status. The thresholds have been played with during various administrations.
@ Kay:
Some people confuse state taxes, or income taxes on final fed and state returns with estate taxes. Or they’re just flat out confused. I love the people who are upset because they are upset about the taxes that they would theoretically have to pay if one day they made enough money to die rich. Others don’t understand when estate taxes actually kick in.
The GOP mines this ignorance, but the Democrats in the past have been dumb about getting the facts out. And the media here is generally dumber than a sack of hammers when it comes to understanding taxes and tax policy.
Omnes Omnibus
@ ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty Two thirds? Half is more like it. Now, jumping to assinine conclusions on the basis of an unsourced op-ed or blog post is a different thing altogether. I say, do it! \\
Is that better?
Cacti
@MikeJ:
You’re right.
Defacto war, not a formal one.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty:
I agree that this is a complicated area in which gaps and ambiguities in both domestic law and the laws of war need to be worked out. But doing so is something which is at least both practical and defensible if the person in question is alive and in our custody. But that is a far cry from agreeing that it is OK for the POTUS to issue a shoot-on-sight order based on nothing more than a secret review of evidence inside the national security apparatus, which is what the limited number of news stories regarding this issue imply has happened.
It is one thing if we send in a delta force team to try to grab somebody to bring them back to the US to stand trial, and a firefight breaks out and the target ends up getting shot (and I’m not naive, I realize this is a scenario which can be gamed or faked), but it is altogether more ominous if an American citizen can be formally condemned in absentia via an extra-judicial process and then DOD and intelligence agencies given an execution order to carry out via predator drone as soon as the person can be physically located. I don’t think the folks who voted into being the 5th and 6th amendments would have agreed that this was a reasonable exception to them, and this is something our courts should rule on before we go around blowing up people who are American citizens. How is this different from the Star Chamber of pre-18th Cen. England, in any way other than the technology used to marshal the evidence and dispatch the condemned?
Again, for the folks who are defending this practice, how would you feel about this issue if President Palin and VP Liz Cheney were the ones deciding who dies and on the basis of what evidence, while Fox News tries them in the court of public opinion? We have courts for a reason, let’s use them.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Brick Oven Bill:
Population: 307,212,123 (July 2009 est.)
0-14 years: 20.2% (male 31,639,127/female 30,305,704)
15-64 years: 67% (male 102,665,043/female 103,129,321)
65 years and over: 12.8% (male 16,901,232/female 22,571,696) (2009 est.)
Overview of the U.S. labor force
There are about 146 million people in the U.S. labor force
If there are 146 million people in the labor force of approximately 206 million people in the age rage of 15-64, that would mean about 71% of the eligible population has some sort of job.
Can you please provide your source for such a claim? Your numbers only make sense if you believe in child labor and working seniors until they keel over. Which, in your case, isn’t that far out of line.
cleek
@Little Dreamer:
i don’t “know” that. but more importantly, we don’t live in your counterfactual world.
show me where the Constitution gives the president the right to kill an American citizen without a trial.
show your work.
WTF indeed! a wingnut-style argument-ad-alQueda ? pretty fucking weak.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
Democrats didn’t even try to get the facts out until the GOP had every non-estate tax payer in a lather about it.
If they’d taken the Al Franken messaging approach from the start, the Estate Tax would be a non-issue today.
kay
@Martin:
Move to a rural area. Your head will explode. How white rural poor people came up with the notion that they do not receive the same federal subsidies that poor people in cities do is beyond me, but they believe that. Despite all tangible (monthly) evidence to the contrary. They’re convinced they’re 1. paying federal income tax and 2. it’s all going to black people… in Cleveland, maybe?
They’re outraged, too.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Omnes Omnibus:
Drinks, on the house!
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Oh, come on! Moderation? I didn’t even use any four-letter words.
Could it be that I’m in moderation because this is my first post using Windows 7?
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
Sorry BOB, but this argument has already been explored on these pages, and your side lost.
You might want to write to Michael D. and maybe you guys can come up with some new material?
ronspri
Isn’t it amazing the number of people who think they are so special the the world spins off the sweat of their very special brows.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Little Dreamer:
This is a reasonble caveat. I also am waiting for more solid info before going crazy about this story. But how much information are we going to get if people aren’t asking about it in a concerned fashion?
This on the other hand:
is simply ridiculous. I’ve read enough of your commentary to known that you can do better than this. Please address the comments that people actually make, which, especially now that we have the reply button back, is not that hard to do.
Little Dreamer
@cleek:
Liar! You know damned well that if al Qaeda had been terror sponsored by another state, that BushCo would have declared war and the country would have absolutely wet their pants in agreement. Fuck you.
I’ll be using your little pie filter on YOU from now on.
You’ve just shown yourself to be a charlatan and I no longer give a shit what you say. You’re not worth my time.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
Well, now we are mixing our conundrums. (Christ, did I actually write that?) Anyway …..
How can the evidence be other than “secret” unless we are ready to expose the inner workings of our entire security apparatus to public examination?
I am no fan of gratuitous and abusive secrecy in government, but I have never understood how we can operate in this dangerous world without some secrecy inside the agencies that are relevant.
If I am right about this, and I am pretty sure I am, then your use of this device is just rhetorical and not useful.
Cacti
@kay:
One of the great political successes of the Reagan administration was creating an enduring myth with white voters that the majority of welfare recipients are black.
Tell them that the largest number of welfare recipients has always been white women and you’ll get the same blank stare you might receive if you’d just said “The earth is flat”.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
No, the mod filter is just a broken and idiotic piece of software, and it does whatever it wants, and eats posts.
It can’t tell the difference between “speciaIist” and “ciaIis”.
I mean, I have written a lot of text-parsing code, and this is just absurd. Anyhoo, I am using the “lower case i” method of evading the filter in my declaration above. Replace lower case L with upper case I and nobody will know the difference.
Thanks again to whoever suggested this to me. I use it all the time.
babagordon
@brachiator
http://www.mybudget360.com/how-much-does-the-average-american-make-breaking-down-the-us-household-income-numbers
What is not true?
Look at that graph and tell it. Most of the rise in taxes falls on those earning below 500K because those earning higher mostly get their income from investment.
No. There’s only one CA tax rate whether you make 200K or a million. In fact, the tax rate is less for higher incomes because most of it is not wages, but investment income. Here is the income of the top 400 by type of income
http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2008/04/06/top-400-taxpayers-sources-of-income-1992-2005/
You just need to see these 2 graphs
1)Here is the tax rates upto 400K income
http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2010/03/15/federal-tax-rates-by-income-for-single-filers-2009/
2)Tax rates for the top 400, 100 million + income
http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2008/03/30/top-400-taxpayers-income-and-taxes-paid-1992-2005/
Earn 400K, pay 30% tax. Earn more than 100 million, pay 18% tax.
That’s the story.
MikeJ
@Little Dreamer: 1) Bush couldn’t have declared war, only congress can, but that’s nitpicking. b) We didn’t invade al Qaeda, we invaded Afghanistan, killed their citizens and took down their government, all without a declaration of war. Our argument was that Afghanistan was, by offering refuge, sponsoring. Like how when the Vatican harbors child molesters they’re sponsoring child molestation.
There’s no reason we didn’t declare war before we invaded Afghanistan, it was just more convenient no to.
Little Dreamer
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Okay ABQ, answer me this:
What the fuck is that guy doing there if he’s not a member of AQ? You think he is being held against his will and being forced to plot and plan evil acts that he absolutely doesn’t want to do?
What is your explanation?
How does an American get to be aligned with AQ without actually, like, you know, deciding he WANTED to be?
Are we all subject to being kidnapped on the street now and being shipped off to a desert training camp to learn how to kill our neighbors?
I am sorry, but, it seems to me that intelligence has this guy pegged, has already done extensive research, and if he’s in Yemen and muslim and a cleric, I have a hard time believing he’s not doing this because he agrees with their manifesto.
What do you think might put this guy on the radar, huh?
I’m not sure that Obama has put out a bona-fide kill order, nor do I believe that is what we would do (possible, but I’d like to think we’d take other less dire action first – I agree he should be captured rather than killed) but I’m being told by cleek that we’re not actually in a major fight with Al Qaeda simply because they’re not a state sponsored military that we have the ability to claim war on. WTF? Do you deny that if AQ had been a state sponsored terror org that we would have declared war? Do you think Bush would have said no? Cleek seems to not believe we would. I think he is insane to make that argument.
Island in Alabama
Leave it to AP to spin the fact that the bottom 50% have only 1% of the wealth into an implication that they’re getting off easy on taxes
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
Whoa Nellie. There is a reason, the reason is that congress has abdicated its war powers and granted them to the executive, for its own reasons. Congress likes the Unitary Executive mostly, despite its crocodile tears and phony rhetoric to the contrary. Otherwise it would assert its rightful power and insist on formal declarations of war.
Little Dreamer
@MikeJ:
You want to think back to the congressional atmosphere at that time and tell me that you don’t think Bush could twist arms and get that vote? I completely disagree.
Bush’s rubberstamp congress? You think they wouldn’t declare war?
Look, I’m not saying that the president declares war (although Bush tried to get away with that, he stated we were at war with al Qaeda numerous times and I’m not arguing that that wasn’t illegal) – but I’m arguing that Congress would have rubberstamped it, just like they did so many other things.
If you believe I’m wrong, I’d like to show you a piece of property in Southwest Florida, I hear it can be had for a song!
MikeJ
Yes. I deny that. Nothing would have been any different.
kay
@Cacti:
One of my (current) bitches about liberals is we missed this huge opportunity with the economic implosion to point to “temporary safety net”.
We didn’t have BREADLINES this time around because we had food stamps and unemployment insurance, when unemployment reached 19%, in this rural county. Ya know, the “safety net” liberals put in place? It was THERE, when the “free market” failed so spectacularly. It WORKED.
We’re (mostly) going back to work here, and that’s great, but it was grim as hell for a while. I do not want to know what it would have looked like without food stamps. I can guess, though. Bread lines.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty:
Per the MSM news stories I’ve seen (this just hit my radar today) the individual in question has been openly preaching jihad against the US, so there should be enough evidence in the public domain to mount a strong case against him under the very broad anti-terrorism laws already on the books, without compromising our intelligence collection methods.
I will be watching the sites I would expect to jump on this story (e.g. Balkinization, ObsidianWings, and of course Glenzilla) for details. I suggest everyone else do the same. If this is a big brouhaha about nothing, then no harm, no foul.
MikeJ
@Little Dreamer:
Sure he could have. Why would he? I simply don’t think he would have seen any advantage in declaring war.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@MikeJ:
I think you are right, in the sense that congress would have done whatever it took to go along with the Iraq ruse.
Congress absolutely will not lead the country, any more than FoxNews will lead the country. If you are in the business of robbery, you want to keep scrutiny down to a minimum, and so you duck and cover whenever the situation requires courage. You grandstand and go along with the mob.
Hey, it worked a long time for Saddam Hussein.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@MikeJ:
Not only that, it isn’t even thought of as necessary any more. When was the last war congress declared? I am pretty sure it was one of the declarations in WWII. Since then, it has been the Smoke and Mirrors War Powers Thingy that has been used by all the preznits since Roosevelt.
Ash Can
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty:
Aye, there’s the rub. I read the New York Times article on this, and it left me with the impression that this measure was taken because al-Awlaki poses a specific and imminent threat. What makes this so creepy, though, is that we don’t know if this is true, there’s no way to find out if it’s true, and we may never know if it’s true, for exactly the reason you give. However, there’s no reason to believe there’s anything illegal about this decision. The fact that there was apparently a procedure to be followed in the event of targeting an American citizen indicates that the law does in fact provide for it.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Maybe. But that begs the original question. I don’t think that anecdotal references help here. What is the standard? I think that the main problem with the “process” we have now is that there is no declared standard in place, and no visible mechanism for employing the standard.
I hope that Obama leaves the field in better shape than he found it, but I won’t fault him if he can’t do that. This problem is bigger than his situation.
cleek
@Little Dreamer:
an impressive argument. i stand corrected!
Little Dreamer
@MikeJ:
Really? Why didn’t he then? Perhaps because it was a war against a group of ideologicals who didn’t all belong to one specific state? I think they didn’t declare war because it was more difficult to do so without having a state to blame. Somebody earlier on this thread had to go back to the treaty of Tripoli to figure out if another undeclared war was implied. Presidents in the past history of this country got permission from congress to declare war. Why would he? How about because it would have added legitimacy that he could then use to defend his choices, the same argument we’ve been having here for years, we probably wouldn’t (and I personally believe and would go so far as to say we definitely wouldn’t) have had that argument if he had actually asked Congress for a declaration of war.
Patriotism was the atmosphere. Flags flying on just about ever car for months (a year or more?) – congress was expected to wear flag lapels and admit to their patriotism. Damn right I believe he would have gotten that declaration.
By the way, I deliver newspapers, I’m amazed at the number of people on my route who have flags hanging from their eaves of their roofs. I’m not talking just flagpoles (got some of those too), but mostly just flags handing straight down from garage overhangs, pictures of flags in windows, all this over 8 years later. The patriotism is still going strong in wingnut territory.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Little Dreamer:
This is a question of fact. We already have a branch of govt. for determining questions of fact when we think the law has been violated, and for assessing the appropriate penalty (not all acts of terrorism rise to the level of requiring the death penalty, c.f. the men prosecuted and convicted during the Bush admin) – the courts. I suggest we use them for their intended purpise.
I agree. Fortunately for us all, it isn’t up to me to determine these things. Sometimes I get things wrong, sometimes I have a bad day, some days I’m just royally pissed off and want somebody to suffer for it. We have courts for this, I suggest we use them. Why should I trust you, or the President, or anybody else, to do a better job of deciding these issues than the judicial branch?
No, what cleek said is that we are not at war, which is something which has a specific technical legal meaning, having to do with the seperation of powers per the Constitution. See ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty #164 for some of the nuances of this, but cleek has a valid point which we can argue over. Unfortunately I have to bow out for now as I need to go offline. This topic should be a top-level post, and hopefully we can hash it out tomorrow and in the days to come until either enough new information comes out to calm the fears of those of us who are concerned (and the topic dries up), or something else.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
Just for justfors, you might want to visit this archived Bill Moyers show on the subject of the unitary executive.
The whole subject fascinates me, and I am certainly no expert on it. But it seems to me that the roots of the growth of the powerful executive lie not in the history of presidents as much as it lies in the willingness of congress to shed its rightful power and evade the responsibility that goes with it.
And when I ask, why would congress do that? I get one simple answer: It works for them. The members get what they want. Does anyone here think that congress would really have wanted a frank and honest “debate” on the Iraq war back in 2002? Or such a debate on Vietnam back in the 1960’s? Congress is full of cowards and thieves IMVHO.
Little Dreamer
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I don’t need to see it, all I have to do is go to my dining room table and hear him tell me what he’s saying, and we’re discussing it. We’ve decided it comes down to a chicken or egg thing. I personally believe Bush would have enjoyed the legitimacy that the declaration for war would have given him (he could have had the whole country behind him with that declaration, or at least most of it – just by legitimizing the documentation); instead what he got was the need to remind us for seven years that we were at war with al Qaeda because he never got that declaration. TZ believes Bush wanted the executive privilege more than the war, I personally believe he wanted the war more than the executive privilege.
Okay, so perhaps I’m wrong – I still believe what I’m saying, and while I agree that others here don’t agree with me (including TZ), I’m not swayed.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
Not really. The de facto situation today is that unless congress is willing to be strongly opposed to some war venture, a president has the power to wage war pretty much as he sees fit and as public opinion is willing to bear.
Post WWII history, and the War Powers Act of 1973, have pretty much canceled the Constitutional requirement for a formal declaration of war. I consider this a considerable tragedy, and we have talked about this at length before …. the remedy is in us, the citizens. We have to decide that we don’t want this, and elect a government that restores the Constitutional process and practices restraint.
However, we are a bellicose nation as demonstrated by 70 years of electing bellicose governments. I don’t see any way to argue otherwise. The proof has been in the pudding.
Little Dreamer
But, all that said, cleek says we’re not at war with al Qaeda, and while a declaration of war doesn’t exist, Obama has stated that we are at war with al Qaeda, and it’s been implied for nine years (and about 15 million websites on Google) that we are at war with al Qaeda.
We can argue all we want about implied war vs factual documenting of war, but, if you ask most citizens of this nation if we’re at war with al Qaeda, the soundbite they’ve been hearing for nine years is that we are, and they won’t even understand the reason why you’re asking that question.
Most citizens would consider the question idiotic on it’s face.
JGabriel
@Little Dreamer:
That would be the same most citizens that, back in 2003, thought Iraq was, somehow, responsible for 9/11 and/or in cahoots with Al Qaeda?
.
Little Dreamer
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty:
__
and on this we completely agree.
Thank you.
I’m going to bed.
I would like to state before I leave, that I’m glad I got the opportunity to prove once again that I’m not TZ’s sockpuppet (we do disagree sometimes, luckily we don’t argue much).
Little Dreamer
@JGabriel:
No, I think that would include a lot of moderates as well.
People who don’t spend a lot of time hashing this out on blogs and just embed the soundbites in their heads.
There’s a lot of people like that.
We’ve been told for years that this war exists. I think we should get a polling entity to take a temperature reading, I think you’d be surprised at the results.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Little Dreamer:
Damn. All these years and I can’t get one decent sockpuppet to shill for me.
Oh well. At least there is Mad Men on DVD to take my mind off things.
cleek
simple test: if Bush had ordered the assassination of a US citizen, what would the comments look like here ? would there be a host of liberals defending him ?
no. nobody would defend him. there would be a dozen people calling for him to be frog-marched off to The Hague.
Obama has ordered the assassination of a US citizen.
either shit like this matters to you or it doesn’t. if it does, own your convictions.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I can understand the fears of some that Obama may be going the Bush route on this one. Or, targeting people, either killing them or capturing them extra legally throughout the world and often without the country of residences permission, and then either sending them to CIA black sites, or elsewhere for torture to see what they know. If Obama starts doing these things, or others like them, then I will dissent hard. But this particular situation is different imo, for several reasons.
And as for detention without trial for AQ members, then I have been saying for a while that obama, at some point, has to bite the bullet and declare them POW’s and give them all the rights hitherto, including battlefield hearings to determine if they really are members of AQ.
First, I think the AUMF covers it, and while it is true Congress has the sole domain to declare war, and I suspect the legal reasoning for doing it without using those precise words, is that having the sole prerogative to declare war, by extended logic means they can abrogate that prerogative it they choose, via something like an AUMF. That btw, was echoed in UN resolutions authorizing basically the same thing to fight AQ. And this guy makes no bones about his membership in that organization.
Secondly, what we are doing is in partnership with the Yemeni’s which also provides a legal underpinning that we are not violating any countries sovereignity,
The part about his US citizenship is really the crux of any argument this is extralegal and that is a valid point to make. If only technically, as the guy has clearly gone to war against the country he claims citizenship from. And make no mistake AQ has, and does regularly, reiterate it’s declaration of war as an organization against the US, and considers every US citizen a valid target for assassination.
I would rather we arrest him and put him on trial, or let the Yemeni’s do it, but what are you going to do when he is being protected by an army of sorts, of AQ members. The section of the country they have coopted sure sounds like a battlefield to me, and I bet to the Yemeni government sees it that way as well.
And I do think we need to wait a while to find out what is true and not about these reports, and if true, get more details from the Obama administration as to what their justification is.
Little Dreamer
@cleek:
Wrong, the statement said “killed or captured” – it did not say killed and nothing more.
You want to know why we got into this mess? Because you are insisting that Obama is ordering the death of an American, and you don’t know that is what is going to happen.
You are jumping the gun, and I am giving him the benefit of the doubt. Time will tell which one of us is correct, and if you are correct, I will come here and offer an apology. I somehow think I shouldn’t expect the same from you.
At the same time, I still believe that if this man is aligned with AQ, he knows what choice he is making and deserves whatever punishment he gets.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
And I will add. That being a citizen of any country comes with some rules and responsibilities, and I am pretty sure one of them is to not declare war on your own country, or join an organization that does the same.
Little Dreamer
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Omnes Omnibus
@cleek:
Two things. First, I am more likely to give Obama the benefit of a doubt than I would Bush. I will cop to that. I also think he has earned it. Second, this does not look to me like an assassination order. To me, it appears to be more akin to situations where police have sniper who can take out a suspect, but are first going to try to capture him. That is how I read the situation. YMMV
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Well said.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@cleek:
No sale. All you have proved is that blog comments are not the final authority on anything, ever. They are, always have been and will always be, mostly bullshit. That’s yours, mine, and everybody else’s.
Sorry to break it to you.
Your argument is dumb.
Wilson Heath
@catclub:
This. SS tax has become an additional layer of income tax as the politicians have fecklessly spent short-term SS surpluses on the general budget. It’s little more than rhetoric now that the contributions are for benefits. And it’s a promise for the future that many are intent on breaking.
If it’s going to act as an income tax, kill the income cap and tax away on higher incomes. And give the IRS more support to go after FICA and SECA evasion. (Enforcement is already stepping up, but it’s improving from what is essentially a black hole.)
“But the pension fund was just sitting there” isn’t supposed to work as an excuse in corporate America. (Yeah, I know, I’m not holding my breath on ERISA replacing its baby teeth with anything fiercer.) Definitely shouldn’t work for our public system.
Paula
Hey now, didn’t mean to start a possible flame war.
It seems complex, and yet it isn’t. I don’t want to have to give anyone “the benefit of the doubt” when it comes to curtailing the rights of citizens. The point is the that we do not want this be a precedent that less sympatico presidents may use.
It’s not about Obama or Bush or any individual POTUS. It’s about not tolerating “targeting without trial” to be a part of our arsenal. It’s why we should continue to loudly protest torture — because it cannot, should not be allowed to normalize.
And I guess I should say per the “declaration of war” talk that I think our invasion of Afghanistan was completely wrongheaded and possibly illegal precisely because there was no clear nation-state that could be held responsible for 9/11. I would have preferred that acts of terrorism become international war crimes. But I’m beginning to realize that even among liberals this is a minority position.
Mike Kay
When world war II broke out, some german-americans returned to germany to fight for the fatherland. Was it okay to shoot a plain SS soldier, but not a SS soldier who held dual citizenship?
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Mike Kay:
Yes, if that soldier claimed that The Wire(tm) was the best thing ever on television.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Paula:
I appreciated you broaching the topic because I think it should have been at least one thread topic, and maybe it will be later, now that you spoke up. I don’t agree with you on this, mostly, but it is certainly debatable and should be debated.
Mike Kay
I mean, the most infamous case is the Battle of the Bulge, when SS commandos, comprised of german-americans parachuted behind Allied lines dressed as american military police and were responsible for countless GI and civilian deaths.
Church Lady
@Cacti: Absolutely nothing is stopping Warren from throwing a few more bucks at Uncle Same than he is legally required to. Funny, I haven’t heard Mr. Buffet advocating an increase in the capital gains tax rates. He’s only been pushing for an increase in federal income tax rates. Since the vast majority of his income comes from capital gains, he can put his damn money where his mouth is – pay more Warren, you can damn well afford it. He has also neatly avoided the federal estate tax by donating almost everything he has to the Gates Foundation. I guess for Warren, it’s a case of better thee than me.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Paula:
Well, we’re challenging the whole “WarrenTerra” marketing scheme. Some of us have been saying that the idea of a “war on terror” is pretty ludicrous, for years.
But it’s like the WarrenDrugs. It is an industry now, and it’s not going away. And it still has political capital. It’s institutionalized and levers of power and large sums of money are associated with it.
cleek
show me in the Constitution where the President of the USA has the authority to command that a US citizen be killed without trial.
show your work.
cleek
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty:
i’m not sure you’re authorized to decide the level of sincerity people put into their blog comments. because it seems to me that many people take a lot of this very seriously, and that they put a lot of thought and effort into them. it sure looks to me as if lots of people here are actually concerned about things.
care to explain how you know differently ?
compared to your claim that you know the sincerity of everyone who makes blog comments ?
Montana
I love that they asked for “Public Defenders” (and they thought they could bring down our government), undercover FBI agent, sweet. Since their inception the Teaparty crowd (not a movement since they do have the numbers or clout) because they are haters not debaters or as others have dubbed them screamers not dreamers. The simpleton Tea baggers are the same whiners that were crying when the McCain/Bailin ticket lost. Now that their yelling and screaming failed to stop the health care debate and the bill from passing they are crying again. Lets face it the Republicans had eight years to deal with health care, immigration, climate change and financial oversight and governance and they failed. The Republicans are good at starting wars (two in eight years, with fat contracts to friends of Cheney/Bush) but not at winning wars as seen by the continuing line of body bags that keep coming home. Instead of participating in the health care debate of ideas the Republicans party turned inward to your old fashion obstructionist party. In my opinion the Republican Waterloo loss was caused by the party allowing a small portions (but very loud) of the republican party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” to take over their party. I will admit that this fringe is very good at playing “Follow the Leader” by listening to their dullard leaders, Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush, Savage, Sarah Bailin, Orly Taitz, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the Blowhards and acting as ill programmed robots (they have already acted against doctors that preform abortions). The Teaparty crowd think they can scare, intimidate and force others to go along with them by comments like “This time we came unarmed”, let me tell you something not all ex-military join the fringe militia crazies who don’t pay taxes and run around with face paint in the parks playing commando, the majority are mature and understand that the world is more complicated and grey than the black and white that these simpleton make it out to be and that my friend is the point. The world is complicated and presidents like Hamiliton, Lincoln, and Roosevelt believe that we should use government a little to increase social mobility, now its about dancing around the claim of government is the problem. The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition. Although some Republicans are trying to distant themselves from this fringe most of them, having no game plan/ vision for our country, are just going along and fanning the flames. For a party that gave us Abraham Lincoln, it is tragic that the ranks are filled with too many empty suits. But they now claim they have changed, come on, what sucker is going to believe that? All I can say to you is remember Waterloo.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@cleek:
Surely you jest. Any sworn law officer can make that kind of decision, based on the facts on the ground and on the circumstances. You can make the decision yourself, if it’s a self defense situation.
What did we think the phrase “Wanted — Dead or Alive” actually means?
A vice president ordered an American airliner shot down, without knowing exactly who was flying it, and I haven’t heard any screams of anguish from the right or the left. How many people would that have killed? Bush ordered other airliners shot down if they failed to comply with orders to land. I never heard a peep about this. Authorities are given huge latitude in certain situations.
What fantasy world are you living in there, dude?
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@cleek:
Sincerity? I am talking about logic and facts, butthead.
You might be sincere. I assume you are. But you are dead wrong. As usual.
What the hell point are you trying to make? That declared enemies of the United States cannot be killed without a trial?
Good luck with that, really. You should run for president.
Paula
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty:
[Man, that reply button is nice.]
Well, it’s established because a lot of liberals initially went ahead with the whole Afghanistan thing. And they still do. And I don’t see a lot of our worst national security abuses/imperialist impulses being turned back until whatever we’re calling the liberal base starts getting engaged with the larger questions of what we’re allowed/not allowed to do in the name of security. Which they’re not doing right now because so much of the dialogue on it in the past few years have focused on “what Bush and Cheney [and various assorted evildoers] are lying about” that a lot of the larger ideological questions were never engaged, at least w/ the larger Dem-leaning public.
Mike Kay
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty: Oh, just stop with your hippie punching!
cleek
this isn’t 1840.
do you see the phrase on Bin Laden’s FBI page ?
do you have any evidence that “dead or alive” is a term used by law enforcement ? i found none.
actually, he didn’t.
then you’ve got a strange way of doing it.
either way: doesn’t is seem odd to argue facts after you’ve just gone and declared that this all BS ? if that’s the case, then what’s the fucking point? why bother ?
he’s a US citizen. he’s had no trial.
if you’re OK with that, then fine. i’m not.
kay
@Church Lady:
Wrong, as usual:
Warren: I– I don’t think people understand it. For one thing, you’ll see a lot of surveys that say the rich, the top one percent pay this much of the income tax. Now I think what people don’t realize is that almost one third of the entire budget comes from payroll taxes. And payroll taxes on income, just like income taxes are taxes on income.
And the payroll tax is over $800 billion out of two and a trillion, or something like that. And people don’t understand– they– they– that the rich pay practically no payroll tax. I mean, I paid payroll tax last year on $90 odd thousand, whatever the number is. I paid income tax on $66 million. But my double income tax, one of ’em quits at $90,000. And the remaining $66 million does not get taxed with payroll tax. So, the person who makes $60,000 in our office gets ta– taxed in full on the payroll tax, and taxed in full on the income tax. And– and all the statistics you read, particularly the one don’t like taxes, well now, they totally ignore the payroll tax. And it’s huge now.
Tom: Of all the tax lines that you’ve seen proposed over the years, a flat tax, a consumption tax, a more progressive income tax, which is the one that appeals to you the most?
Warren: Well, in theory a progressive consumption tax makes the most sense. I mean, if you tax the people who use the resources of society rather than ones who– who– who provide the resources of society, that makes more sense. And a consumption tax can be very progressive.
You can have just an unlimited IRA. As long as you invest money, and don’t actually spend it for yourself, or your kids don’t spend it, or whatever– you don’t get taxed. As soon as you start making withdrawals from society’s bank, start using the resources, the– the sweat of other people to– benefit yourself, you would pay on that. That– that’s the one that makes the most sense. I don’t– it isn’t gonna happen– in all likelihood.
Certainly the worst taxes– is something like a sales tax. I would say that we’ve got a pretty bad system, when we tax the person who– who cleans out my office, the receptionist. They are paying 15– payroll taxes, over 15 percent now, just for openers.
Most of my income is taxed at 15 percent, and– and doesn’t pay a payroll. Mainly it’s dividends and capital gains. ”
Your other argument is ridiculous, too. He “avoided” paying estate taxes because he made a huge charitable donation?
So he could have kept 55% of that money, if the estate tax is 45%, and instead gave 100% of it away, and you consider this a way to “avoid” taxes?
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Mike Kay:
I’m allowed. I’m an old hippie. I get a pass.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Mike Kay:
Okay, you are just being an ass now.
The WDOA phrase is pretty commonly understood, and it demonstrates that there is ample history for the right of government officials to take that kind of action. It’s not new.
I am not okay with the whole War On Terror, as a general topic, but the minutiae of it, such as this current item, is hardly the real issue. But the bottom line is, officials have that kind of authority because we give it to them. Always have.
If you are not okay with that, then maybe you should move the happy fanciful country of Libertaria. It’s just east of the sun and west of the moon.
kay
@Church Lady:
Because you’re a poor listener. That’s the 15% rate he’s talking about. That’s his whole point. His secretary is taxed at 30%, between payroll and income taxes, and he’s taxed only on the first 90,000 in payroll and the rest at 15%, because the rest is capitol gains and dividends.
That’s why he challenged the top 400, and it’s why they can’t meet the challenge.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Paula:
I went along with the Afghan war at first. Right up until this:
After that, I figured we had been had. He was just fucking with us. The war was just a ruse, a political tool at that point.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty:
Sorry, that reply was to cleek, not Mike Kay. I don’t know how I fucked that up.
kay
@Church Lady:
Tom: He thinks it’s just an unjustifiable system because the payroll tax is the tax most of the people pay on ordinary income and he gets the capital gains tax. He thinks a lot of that should be bumped up.
And, as for that charge that investors will stop working if they get taxed at a higher rate, he says he remembers when capital gains were 40 percent .. people didn’t go home at 3 o’clock in the afternoon saying, ‘I’m going to a movie. I’ve paid too much in taxes already.’ He doesn’t think it will have a big effect on the economy. Pretty controversial.
cleek
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty:
well, in that case, i guess there’s nothing left to discuss ! common understanding trumps all !
who needs a court system when we have common understanding and a president with the power to kill citizens on his say-so ?
i’m sorry, but nobody granted you the right to decide what “the real issue” is or isn’t. really. if you don’t care about it, fine, then quit bickering with those who do.
actually, we haven’t. even in apparent cases of outright treason, citizens are allowed a trial. because, you know, like it or not: due process, innocent before proven guilty, yadayadayada…
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@cleek:
Actually, we have, and do, and will. Obviously you don’t like that. Good on you. But you are also obviously not interested in talking seriously about the subject, you just want to stamp your feet.
Happy stamping, I have other things to do.
Little Dreamer
@cleek:
You can’t be serious. First of all, the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces. Second, I think you should check this out and don’t get angry at me, I’m just pointing you to what the Justice Department says. Third: as an American (we are clear that Obama was born in Hawaii after it became a state and is therefore a US citizen, correct? I don’t want to go into Orly Taitz territory here, please…) a person taking the oath for citizenship (which would be an implied duty of natural born citizens at birth) is to be at the behest of the nation to protect the country from all enemies, foreign or domestic.
I believe, not only does Obama have the right to order the death of a domestic enemy (US citizen on Yemeni soil), so do you and I, if we are called to such a task. As the commander in chief, he gets to make choices you and I don’t get to make.
Now, am I stating that I believe he is going to do this? Nope, but I have shown you my case, which you asked me to make for how this is constitutional.
[constitutional citations are located within the links themselves]
Please make your case as to why this is not constitutional, please?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@cleek:
I do understand the point your making here, and it is a valid one, and we don’t have all the info about what is happening.
I tend to believe this is for legal purposes a war and this person has joined the other side and is fighting with his comrades on foreign soil and citizenship has it’s limits for protection in such circumstances. But I plan to do some research on the topic because it is a question that is important.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Little Dreamer:
Maybe cleek wants to install mobile courtrooms in our tanks and bombers. That way his lawyers can argue each case in real time.
I support that policy as long as he pays for it.
Wilson Heath
@kay:
Yep. And top marginal rates on ordinary income were 70% under Nixon. But Obama allowing current law to sunset as it was written and budget-scored so the top marginal bracket resets to 39.6% = ZOMG, Soshulizm.
Quaintly enough, there’s a contemporary commentary (RIA maybe?) on the Revenue Reform Act of 1969, IIRC, that says in the intro something about, contrary to one’s expectation of a reform act, it is quite beneficent and generous to taxpayers. We live in a different fraking country than existed then. WTF happened?
Anarch
I’m curious: if Obama had ordered the summary execution of the Hutarees — or, to pick a somewhat uglier example, Gov Perry and his cronies during his flirtation with secession — on the grounds that they were domestic enemies, would anyone be OK with that?
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Anarch:
Yes, if the Hutarees are people who wait until their grocery order is rung up in its entirety before they start writing a check.
TenguPhule
I’d like A)More information confirming what’s actually policy since our non-liberal media tends to lie or be lied to by ANON a lot. and B)Less of this “fuck it, it’s war so it’s okay” mentality. I didn’t want that turdfucker Bush with this kind of “death from above on my say so” power and I don’t want that with Obama either.
socratic_me
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty: The complaint here is that he can be targeted away from a battlefield. On a charge from the government. That hasn’t been proven in a court of law.
I really thought that most progressives believed that the government yelling “terrorist” wasn’t enough to establish that one was a terrorist. Apparently we only agreed that that wasn’t good enough for Bush. Obama, he can call anyone he wants a terrorist and we are okay with that.
Look, I am not saying this guy is a good guy. I am simply saying that “associating yourself with al Queda” isn’t a killing offense. Calling for the death of American troops isn’t even a killing offense, just like calling for the murder of fellow Americans isn’t a killing offense. Indeed, saying awful things in general isn’t even an offense at all (although we are rapidly throwing that restriction out for all accused of supporting “terrorists” sadly. That is what “common understanding” gets you.)
For those of you who get all pissed off when Glen talks about Obots, this is you earning it. As soon as you are willing to give lawlessness a pass because it is Obama pulling the trigger, you are no longer talking about rule of law. You are talking about rule of “that guy I like and trust.” That reduces your arguments to not much above a cult of personality.
TenguPhule
Granted, it would clean out 99% of the GOP and their associates which is not necessarily a bad thing….
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@socratic_me:
Well, you are full of shit, and a liar. Just thought I’d respond in kind to you and get us off to a good start.
My view on this has nothing to do with Obama. So your entire premise is in the toilet. Nothing I have said on the subject can be taken to support your claim, so I assume you just made it up thinking that you could slide it past me. Sorry.
As for the “charge” that hasn’t been “proven,” that’s a criminal justice term. I’m pretty sure that the present case has nothing to do with criminal justice and its processes. So that entire premise is also in the toilet.
The subject of the matter appears to be a person who has joined up with enemies of the United States, and it seems to me that an order to engage that subject as we would engage any enemy target in a foreign land is entirely lawful under the powers of the Commander in Chief. If the question revolves around Al Qaeda, then we need only refer to the Authorization For Use of Military Force Against Terrorists:
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
Oh, just to wrap this up, the votes for AUMFAT:
House of Representatives
On September 14, 2001 bill House Joint Resolution 64 passed in the House. The totals in the House of Representatives were: 420 Ayes, 1 Nay and 10 Not Voting (the Nay was Barbara Lee – D-CA).
[edit] Senate
On September 14, 2001 Senate Joint Resolution 23 passed in the Senate by roll call vote. The totals in the Senate were: 98 Ayes, 0 Nays, 2 Present/Not Voting (Senators Larry Craig – R and Jesse Helms – R).
If you don’t want a government that does these things, your remedy is go out and try to elect a different kind of government. Good luck with that.
Mike Kay
@Anarch: your analogy is false.
There’s a difference btwn capturing someone or someone who surrenders versus someone who refuses to surrender, has taken life or is about to take life, and can not be captured without loss of life.
police officers do it every day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout
Mike Kay
@socratic_me:
I guess it depends how you define “associate”.
If he’s an active member of Al-Qaeda and refuses to surrender and can not be caught without lose of life, then you would treat him the same way you would treat armed german soldier who refuses to surrender.
If by “associate” you mean someone who delivers pizza, they’re okay. But if they’re providing arms, explosives, and finance, then they should consider emigrating to south america, like the nazi war criminals.
kay
@Wilson Heath:
Do you remember the horror expressed by the media moderator at one of the 50,000 debates when Obama suggested raising capital gains taxes to balance the budget?
Compare that to the groveling media worship shown towards Young Republicans who promote privatizing Social Security, to balance the budget, which is a fucking INSANE idea, as we found out in 2007, when the whole finance sector crashed, yet again.
It’s as if there’s only one side to a ledger. The ONLY way to raise revenue is to raise taxes on poor people or cut services.
socratic_me
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty: Wow. I certainly didn’t call anyone a liar or full of shit. There does seem a rash of that going around on this thread. It also seems to be all headed in one direction. Pretty clearly, engaging with you in this debate is a proven waste of time. So I will leave it to someone with more time to waste than I.
Little Dreamer
@socratic_me:
Uh, no! The guy is a muslim cleric in Yemen who is aligned with AQ. If that isn’t good enough for you, then I’m sorry, he is communicating with the enemy and he needs to be taken out (either captured, or if they can’t do that, then removed through loss of life).
Bush is the one who expanded executive privilege, the rules are now changed. I didn’t create precedent, Bush did, but now that that precedent exists, it is constitutional and this is one of the few examples where I would agree it needs to be used. The guy is an enemy combatant who, according to research of those who are investigating, has turned his back on America and is cooperating with AQ terrorists to create destruction against Americans, he needs to be dealt with.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@socratic_me:
Yes, well in other words I handed you your ass on a silver platter and your response is “I know I am but what are you,” or something like that.
This is not a debate, son, it’s an ass whipping. You just made shit up and expected maybe a free car wash coupon? Try the Republican blogs, I think those people are more your speed.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@socratic_me:
Call me crazy, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that you appear to be lying and full of shit? Or maybe you are just misunderstood. Yeah, that must be it.
socratic_me
@Little Dreamer: “The guy is a muslim cleric in Yemen who is aligned with AQ. If that isn’t good enough for you, then I’m sorry, he is communicating with the enemy and he needs to be taken out…”
Muslim cleric who agrees with people we are fighting (and actively promotes their POV)=capture or kill him
“I didn’t create precedent, Bush did, but now that that precedent exists, it is constitutional and this is one of the few examples where I would agree it needs to be used.”
Bush did it=”It is now constitutional; what are you complaining about?”
Got it.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@socratic_me:
Um, maybe I misread something, but I think he is also the Muslim cleric who advised the nutcase in Texas that went ballistic and shot up an Army base. Apparently he is a Muslim cleric who has an agenda that includes killing Americans whenever he gets a bug up his ass.
So, no, he is not just some guy who rubs us the wrong way, but another one of those Muslims who seems to think the only good American is a dead American.
So, go ahead and defend him. But before you do, can you please take the time to try to get at least something right in your next response?
Little Dreamer
@socratic_me:
Oh, I guess I forgot, muslim clerics just sit around playing tiddlywinks and don’t actually create any animosity towards Americans in the hearts of their muslim adherents.
Got it!
CoC
@jibeaux:
We are little vague, aren’t we? It’s hot, we do our best…and I was always proud of our little wordpress contact form, but I’m more tour-guide than web designer (and it’s not close). Let me know your the guy from Balloon Juice and I’ll do my best for you.
Randomly yours (If you even notice this)
J.