For seven years Arnold has been California Governor. Has it been a good run? Well, let's be honest.. Not a shit lot got better. In fact, Arnold is leaving Sacramento with a 28 billion dollar budget shortfall. How the fuck did he get elected in the first place? Well, we need to go back to the 2003 re-call elections. Davis was doing a shitty job (just as shitty as Arnold is leaving with) and we decided to recall him. To be perfectly honest, I voted for him.
And for those of you who claim that people like me were stupid for voting for Arnold, I have one thing to say to you... What the fuck were the options? There was 135 bad candidates to choose from and Arnold was probably the only decent one. Oh, who did you want me to vote for? That fucking porn star? The weed attorney? Gary fuckin' Coleman? He's dead you know. You wanted a dead midget to run our state into the ground? I think not.
Even though Arnold leaves office today with only a 22% approval rating, the same rating that Gary Davis had that kicked off the whole process to get him recalled, Arnold has at least tried... and failing.
He went into this whole thing with the Meg Whitman stance that he wasn't in the pocket of anyone large business and he was going to handle the office like a business. Welp, look at how that turned out. His main goal was to target those bureaucratic "boxes" and much like in the Terminator film, you can't really change history. They still remain.
Though Schwarzenegger did successfully collaborate with the mainly democratic legislature to pass a landmark greenhouse-gas emissions law, which will probably be his crowning achievement. He did fail terribly at solving the state's fiscal crisis. Leaving Jerry Brown $28 billion in the red.
The biggest downfall that Arnold faced was trying to have the people love him by not laying down the honest truth that our state can not function without higher taxes. Look at how our school systems are in such a mess because he didn't want to do the hard choice and raise taxes. The UC system is at least triple the cost with far less of a budget to hire proper professors. The Cal State system is a complete mess right now. You know, there's people in other countries rioting over far less.
It's sort of sad but I do see a lot of similarities with Obama that I do with Arnold. He's charismatic, knows how to get the people voting, but when it came down to the tough choices, they're just pandering to the public instead of actually, you know, enacting the change they campaigned upon.
At least with Jerry Brown gets sworn into office today, he's more than willing to pull us off the tit and make those tough choices be faced. The scary truth is that we need more taxes. Especially if we want to keep the social services and schools properly funded. But then again, Californians hate paying taxes. We even set up new laws so that it's even harder to get taxes approved. Which I'm not sure how much of a help it is to Jerry Brown.
Isn't that the damn truth. We finally get someone who isn't afraid to raise the taxes to meet the high cost of living in California and yet we have to deal with a slew of new hurdles to get those taxes approved by the people. Which of course they'll never want to face the music on and have to deal with them.
Might I add, it's not like most of you did much to stop him during his re-election. Shit, he easily won that one in 2006. At one point his approval rating was around 60%. The truth of the matter is that once California hit the housing bubble, it didn't matter who was in the drivers seat - there was shit all that could be done about it. We were going to ride that crazy train into the ground regardless of who was at the controls.
The state faced a massive budget shortfall and its those lack of taxes and the ability to get them passed that was going to be harming us far more than a former actor governor. Yeah, sure. He borrowed heavily from the budget gaps during his first tenure, but if he didn't then he would have faced a budget shortfall much earlier in his term as governor.
If there's anyone you want to blame for California's shitty position, just blame the economy. That's the real problem.
Arnold does leave office doing one good thing. He granted clemency to a woman who killed her pimp when she was 16. So she will no longer be serving life and is now faced with only 25 years to life with chance of parole.
A woman who was 16 when she ambushed and killed her former pimp in a Southern California motel room has been granted clemency by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in his last full day in office.
Sara Kruzan, now 32, was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for the 1994 shooting death of George Gilbert Howard.
Prosecutors said Kruzan was no longer working for Howard when she killed him.
Calling her life sentence "excessive", Mr Schwarzenegger commuted Kruzan's sentence to 25 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Her clemency petition cited years of abuse and psychiatric reports saying she suffered from battered women's syndrome.
So what's next for former Governor Schwarzenegger? Well, he may go back to acting if the right script comes his way. But at 63 years old, I'm not sure how much action he can handle.
"Will I still have the patience to sit on the set and to do a movie for three months or for six months, all of those things? I don't know,"
So it's really a toss up on what he may do. He really doesn't have much in the way of plans. I guess one plan is to drive his eco-friendly hummer out of Sacramento and not go back for a very long time.
Bush Tax-Cut Deal With Jobless Aid Said to Be Near Published: December 5, 2010
WASHINGTON — White House officials and Congressional Republicans said Sunday they were closing in on a deal to temporarily continue the Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels, while bitterly frustrated Democratic Congressional leaders began exploring whether they would have the votes for such a package.
A day after the Senate rejected President Obama’s preferred tax plan, officials said the broad contours of a compromise were in focus.
Rather than extending the tax rates only on income described by Democrats as middle class — up to $250,000 a year for couples and $200,000 for individuals — the deal would also keep the rates for higher earners, probably for two years. In return, Republicans said they would probably agree to extend jobless aid for the long-term unemployed.]
Senior Democrats on Sunday said that they were resigned to defeat in the highly charged tax debate, and they voiced dismay.
“We’re moving in that direction,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat said dejectedly when Bob Schieffer, host of “Face the Nation” on CBS, asked him if the 2001 and 2003 tax rates would be extended even for the wealthy. “And we’re only moving there against my judgment,” Mr. Durbin added.
In meetings with administration officials after the Senate votes, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and many other House and Senate Democrats voiced deep unhappiness at the prospect of extending all the tax cuts and also expressed their belief that the White House did not appear to be getting enough for such a big concession, officials said.
That sort of anger raised the likelihood that Republicans would have to generate large numbers of votes to advance any deal in Congress, much as they did to help approve the big financial system bailout at President George W. Bush’s request in 2008.
White House officials, meanwhile, expressed hope of sealing a deal swiftly, perhaps by midweek, and clearing the Congressional calendar for a long list of other priorities that they aim to accomplish by the end of the year, including ratification of the New Start arms treaty with Russia and the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gay service members as part of a wider Pentagon policy bill.
Administration officials said the negotiations were focused on the question of extending the tax rates for one or two years, with a three-year extension highly unlikely, even though that time frame would probably eliminate the tax fight as an urgent issue in the 2012 elections.
Well shit, who the fuck didn't see this ass fucking coming. I'm sorry for the harsh language but I mean, come on. He isn't even trying anymore. Yeah, I guess the silver lining in all this is that they're extending unemployment, so at least there's some positive....
Oh wait, the key word in talks was probably extending unemployment benefits.... That's the same way I'll probably win a million dollars tomorrow and then be able to take advantage of the republican tax cut.
I really worry that if the tax cut and unemployment extension aren't part of one bill, then they'll just take the tax cuts and when it comes time for the vote for the unemployment benefits... hee, yeah, the Dems will be in for a surprise.
Here's what I don't get - You trade in a few weeks of fiscal soundness for years to come of death and uncertainty. When it's time to renew the unemployment benefits we won't have anything to pay for it because we'll still be knees deep in a massive tax cut. It's not difficult to realize that the money needs to come from somewhere.
But hey, at least with these new massive tax cuts, they'll be able to hire more people... right? Right?! Ha, yeah... I'm sure once they get their tax cuts they will just bitch about how there's no money for any of that. Let's not forget that cutting taxes on the rich was found to be the worse method to stimulate the economy.
What a bunch of worthless cowards, they didn't try for one second to spin this against the republicans for holding the unemployment benefits/relief ransom in exchange for the tax cuts to be kept by the wealthy.
For someone who constantly said "We have some hard decisions to make", he sure as fuck finds every possible easy way out of everything without even pretending to think about doing anything remotely close to being unpopular.
The worse aspect of this is that 2% payroll tax. Isn't that going towards Social Security and Medicare? Man, I really think that those social services are in for some serious problems down the line. For a socialist, he sure doesn't like to do anything to help social services.
But back to the 2% payroll tax cut, which is really a 1/6 cut for social security. It really shouldn't go unnoticed in all this. Social security is about a 12% tax on your paycheck, up to a maximum or so. Yeah, it's a flat tax with extra regressive flavor. If you're employed, your employer pays half of that, so both you and the capitalist scum directly oppressing you pay a 6% of your paycheck.
So by cutting the social security tax by 2%, you're hacking out 16% of its income with literally no planning or reasoning or even anything close to a budgetary reason for doing so other than because the republicans said so. This really a big deal when you think that their defense for not doing the unemployment benefits was to not put a hardship on the deficit and not pass the bill to our future generations. But what you're doing by cutting this is making sure that social security doesn't have anything left in it down the line.
I'm sure many of you are already operating on the assumption that you wont ever see a dime of what you're paying into social security, so fuck it, right? You also shouldn't forget that you're also allowing businesses to write off all their capital investments for tax purposes during 2011.
But also this quick band-aid on the problem does nothing to help the issue of who gets coverage on this unemployment benefits. This deal only extends the 99 week window for unemployment. It doesn't actually increase it beyond that initial 99 weeks. So if you were going to run out of unemployment benefits, you're still faced with that harsh reality under this new deal.
Why would you need to be on unemployment for 99 weeks? You know, the time span of two years? Well, you could be an American living in 2010. While there would be people who just label those without a job for two years as bums, there's a harsh reality mixed in there.
The inability to find a job in your field and at an income level equal to or promising to soon be equal to what you were getting on unemployment is a real motivator. You really can't blame people for refusing to get a shit job for a shitty hourly wage when they are well qualified professionals with lots of lie expenses and experience. You shouldn't expect them to take a job at McDonalds that will pay the same, if not a little less than unemployment benefits.
These jobs don't even remotely pay a living wage. It's not even a matter of "not paying the same" factoring into it. Most of these places don't even offer that many hours. And have you've worked retail lately? They'll do anything possible to make sure you don't go over the hours that would require them giving you any sort of benefits.
They want to make sure you're under 34 hours a week so you can avoid ever being a "full-time employee". In much of the rural south and mid-south, Walmart gets away with paying new hires minimum wage and leaving them there until they quit or die. How else do you think you're goods are so cheap? There are literally no other jobs around, so you take it or you starve.
With federal min. being $7.25, after social security and medicare withholding, you will be taking home $428.52 every two weeks... or a grand total of $11k a year. There's really no reason why you should lower yourself to doing this work if unemployment is willing to give you close to that without having to deal with stupid Walmart customers.
Let's not forget, these people already put into the unemployment insurance, you saying they shouldn't take advantage of them is like telling someone who got into a car accident that they shouldn't use the insurance they pay monthly to fix the car.
At least one person isn't laying down as easy as the President. Bernie Sanders is threatening to bust out the filibuster.
I really can't stress how much I want to see Bernie up there holding the floor all day and night like a democrat during the civil rights struggle. Of course, we haven't had a democrat like that for a long time and I find it hard to dig up enough hope to ever see something like that again.
In my view, it is a moral outrage that at a time when this country has a $13.8 trillion national debt, a collapsing middle class and a growing gap between the very rich and everybody else that the Republicans would deny extended unemployment benefits to 2 million workers who are desperately struggling to pay their bills and maintain their dignity. It is also beyond comprehension that the Republicans would hold hostage the entire middle class of this country so that millionaires and billionaires would receive huge tax breaks. In my view, that is not what this country is about and it is not what the American people want to see. Our job is to save the disappearing middle class, not lower taxes for people who are already extraordinarily wealthy and increase the national debt that our children and grandchildren would have to pay.
It's pretty sad when "middle class" is used instead of pointing out that there's people literally starving because of the gap between the rich and those even considered "middle class".
Still, even with this lone spark in an otherwise dark room, I'm all done getting my hopes up for any sort of logic or common sense... or anything but corruption in our government. Maybe a few of you haven't had your heart blackened all the way yet.
I'm sure many of you are thinking that everyone should be in favor of this tax cut. After all, who in America likes to pay taxes? There shouldn't be a reason to give your money to the U.S. Government, am I right, guys?
Only, that's not the point nor is it how money works. I'd much rather have some new roads, maintained pot holes and unemployment for the poor than our capital overlords seeing an extra 9 figure bonus in their paycheck because they re-invested their tax breaks into some untouchable bond.
You know, Nixon was considering the guaranteed minimum income for all Americans. He was seriously the most socialist president we would ever have. Just looking at that Obama clip has me mad. He keeps on talking about all the many campaign promises, how about mentioning the ones he already broken?
Maybe I'm too hard on him. I don't realize how hard it must have been for him to give in to the thieves on the GOP side who would prefer to protect the upper 2% with a bailout instead of delivering $700 billion over ten years to pay for the deficit that the GOP constantly brings up as the reason we can't afford social services.
Did you know that the US treasury lost out on $16 billion from simply 4 people dying during a year with a 0% estate tax? One of those fuckers was Steinbrenner. How about the reminder that last quarter American businesses recorded the highest ever profits since records have been kept. Seven consecutive quarters at some of the highest growth rates in history and yet they can't create jobs without some tax breaks and more subsidies.
That's right. They're not by any means new. It's all the old tax cuts. Remember all that talk about Change and Hope. The kind that you could believe in? Yeah.... about that, don't expect it anytime soon cause Obama extends Bush Tax Cuts.
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration is ready to accept an across-the-board, temporary continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers.
That appears to be the only way, said David Axelrod, that middle-class taxpayers can keep their tax cuts, given the legislative and political realities facing Obama in the aftermath of last week's electoral defeat.
Gee, I'm sure glad you folks decided to vote against the incumbents to get new blood in there. Cause they're sure on the right track to getting our shit together. Though I guess this isn't coming as much of a shock. I think I figured out the quote for the DNC to use on their banners.
"If we think we're going to lose, why bother fighting?" -The DNC's Call to Arms
Boy Howdy, am I glad I voted for Obama. He's everything I thought he would be! Bring on that hope and change...
This is pretty sad for the sole reason that this was probably all I had hope for left with him. But I guess I should have known better and just given up on Hope long ago. If there was any justice in the world, or at the very least any clear cut backing on others words about trying to reach a compromise, it's just tossed out.
An actual compromise would have been to keep in place the middle class tax cuts while letting the wealthy tax cuts expire at the end of next year. But nope, that shit isn't happening and our nation will be in a state of stasis for the next two years. Then in four years we can cut them again. It's a pretty vicious cycle. Obama's idea of compromise is to just give into any of the republicans demands on whatever they want. Grow some balls, man.
The whole appeal of Obama was that he wouldn't be as bad as Clinton. But he's so much worse as of now. In spite of all the neo-liberal reforms Clinton enacted, he at least had some form of commitment to mildly progressive taxation whereas Obama obviously doesn't give a fuck about any of that.
Q: In reading about what will happen to the Bush tax cuts in 2011, the federal estate tax is never mentioned, in my experience. Why so, and what should we expect? —N.M., Santa Cruz, Calif.
A: The strange saga of the federal estate tax, dubbed the "death tax" by its foes, has drawn growing attention lately. Nobody knows what will happen -- even though the midterm elections now are history. But there is a chance that Congress finally will take action in coming weeks when lawmakers return for a lame-duck session.
Naturally, you can't rule out the possibility that Congress will do nothing. Gridlock seems like Washington's natural state these days. But there is a compelling reason to expect some action: If Congress does nothing, the nation will face a bizarre set of circumstances.
This year, the federal estate tax is zero. If Congress takes no action, the tax will return on Jan. 1, 2011, with a basic exemption of $1 million and a top rate on the largest estates of 55%. Most lawmakers have indicated they don't want this to happen.
That would ensnare far more people than the estate tax did in 2009, when the basic exemption was $3.5 million with a top rate of 45%. (Transfers from one spouse to another typically were tax-free, however.) Furthermore, it would be odd to have a system with a zero estate tax this year followed by a very high estate tax next year.
"I can't believe Congress would let this happen," says Nadine Gordon Lee, president of Prosper Advisors, a wealth-management firm.
"The most likely option for a lame-duck session compromise seems to be restoration of the 2009 rules," says Tim Hanford, a consultant in Bethesda, Md., and a former tax staffer on the House Ways and Means Committee. "However, many members of Congress would like to provide even more estate-tax relief."
Much of the speculation focuses on setting the basic estate-tax exemption level somewhere between $3.5 million and $5 million and cutting the top rate to somewhere between 35% and 45%.
So basically the best tax, the one made excuslively for dead rich people, is going to be gutted or completely reworked within the next two years. No way will the rich in power allow for this shit. I mean, why would you let the US collect $14.8 billion from the elite for simply dying and passing on their mega bucks to the next elite family name? So you know that those effected aren't going to stand for a $15 billion dollar taxation on such a limited population
An easy route for this anger against it would be to simply call it a "Death Tax". It seems like putting Death in front of things works. Death Panels. But this tactic will surely gather the red state true patriots to gather around in their tea parties and proclaim that while the only two certainties in life are death and taxes, they shouldn't be combined.
Not like they'll have a tough competition for this. Who the hell is going to defend the estate taxes publicly? One, it's viewed as taking from your recently departed loved one. But it also creates a stupid mess of confusion between states who the relative may have lived in or kept money in.
Take Bank of America. What if they kept your assets in bank crossing state lines, will the state that it's in keep the taxes or will the place where the dead guy be it? What will be the tax rate for them? It's bad enough that the secret life goal of Americans is to discover that they had a rich estranged uncle money bags who just wanted to give them his vast fortunate they never knew about. So they won't dare even consider the possibility of taxing this mythical golden goose.
But then you have to factor that death taxes may not make a whole lot of sense. Everything the person earns is already taxed when they're alive. So you're going to tax it again when they die? Why should kids be punished for their parents success? Then again, any rich fucker worth their weight in expensive sea salt probably already set up some living trust to spirit the money away to the heirs.
As much as they want to support their troops, most of Americans don't want their inheritance to go towards funding a bunch of murderous tyrants. I guess the only good reason to oppose this would be to actually starve our hungry War State.
Just think, in a good 10 years time, each and every state is going to have no money and no infrastructure. The entirety of the next decade or two looks like it's going to be awful. I just wonder how Fox News will spin this whole story about Obama giving up on the fight against Bush era tax cuts.
It seems to be the mantra of every American to suggest that we should raise the taxes of everyone else but themselves. We can't get very far on that mindset. Especially not in California where it's far easier to pass something to spend money than it is to actually allow ourselves the ability to collect that money for the proposed item.
It leads one to think about how California has to already borrow a lot to meet its unemployment obligations and maybe things would get bad enough to bring people out of their holes and call a state constitutional convention. But that isn't going to happen either.
Even if it did happen, there's nothing that can happen in the US political circle anymore without being co-opted to benefit the rich in some way or another. We literally have sold our nation to the captains of enterprise. Capitalism has worked in making some rich off the back breaking work and sweat of those below them.
Looking at the Dailykos and Huffpost, you'd think that the democrats finally cracked. The Huffpost is tearing into Obama pretty badly over this and all the Obama supporters are so desperate that they're criticizing huffington post as being "anti-Obama". Really? REALLY?
I don't mean to sound crazy, but it would really not surprise me if both parties are so filled with so much separation that we get a 2012 election that has actual viable third and fourth party votes.... Okay, who the fuck am I kidding, that shit wont ever happen. But at least I'm throwing it out there.
Okay, that shit is for sure never happening. At best this just means that we'll have the lowest voter turnout ever.
What else can you expect when you follow up a "YES WE CAN!" chant with the act of squandering the democratic majority and doing almost nothing to fix anything slightly before the republicans take back the house. You're just saying that it didn't work out like you hyped everyone up for and you want to get placed back into office? Yeah.. probably not the best idea.
You might as well make the tax rate over 250k just 0%. No one cares about a ship that sinks slowly, but everyone remembers a ship that hits an ice berg and cracks in half as it sinks. Even if a slowly sinking ship allows for the running around of passengers while giving the rich people enough time to get into the life rafts with all their belongings.
When it comes down to it, it's hard to get behind a tax cut and I really don't want to give my money to a government that steadily cuts every form of social spending and welfare while increasing taxes to those who can not afford them to begin with.
When I was young I would take a look at my father do his taxes and I would be proud of him. When it came time for April 15th, he didn't ACTUALLY do his taxes, you see, he just got an extension. But he would be rushing at the last possible minute to actually get that extension. Hey, if you're going to put something off, you might as well put it off till the last possible moment, right?
So to those of you who are waiting for 11:59 to get your federal income, or even your extension post marked, I stand up and cheer for your honesty in being a true American and being completely lazy. Way to put off for tomorrow what you should have done two months ago.
You know what, stop your bitching, people. Americans barely pay any taxes as it is compared to a lot of the other other countries... why the hell are all these people bitching like the government is taking half their paycheck?
In all truth, the average American probably has a tax rate comparable to a lot of "socialist" countries, he just gets much less for it since military spending and corporate largesse are just redistribution to the rich. Don't forget that we have a 12%ish regressive tax on top of oridinary income taxes.
Most Americans wouldn't be whiny bitches if taxes were actually put to better use. Too bad they're their own worse enemy because they support the very things that cause taxes to be so inefficient. Really, the only thing we can do as Americans is establish a Technocracy and then purge America of its retarded-by-choice.
I'm also laughing at the fact that if you haven't figured out how to play the game and fuck the system out of your money by paying absolutely no taxes like 49% of Americans. Right wing commentators have been pointing this outrage out all week. Why have you not been paying attention?
Just think about all the money that goes towards fueling terrorism... Oh, I meant the U.S. Armed forces... Whoops! Yes, you're directly funding the imperialist war machine with every tax dollar you pay. But don't worry, if you have a diamond wedding ring you already have blood on your hands.
Though, I do have some problem with the money that is withheld from your paycheck. I mean, yeah. It's just putting money aside for your taxes. But just think of this interest-free loan you're giving to the federal government here to just hold on to that money for all that time. You know how much you could make if you just invested it? Thanks a lot, U.S. government.
Look at me, I can afford a $125,000 Mercedes Benz but I can't afford my taxes! I have to say that if you don't know how to file a tax form, you have an education of a child. The tax form is really not that difficult. It's actually no more complicated than the census and that only comes around once every decade!
So.. yeah. I sort of run out of things to say here. You could make a joke about how the IRS has audited my humor, but then again - when have I been funny?
Plenty of Taxation With Maybe Some Representation?
Oh man, it's almost that time of the year. TAX TIME! WOOOO HOOOO! Only a week after my birthday I get the great gift of having to pay the government. Just a reminder that four months out of the year you work in slavery to the government. So I guess it's only fitting that it's only four months into the year that you have to pay them your tax due.
Then again, every day of the year you use something the government built. So perhaps four months of your time isn't that bad. Still, some may say that it's just a form of slavery. You just need to remember to mentally reduce your salary by a third when doing any planning for your money.
I guess the idea that debt is slavery comes from the fact that we are all in debt via the federal reserve. Taxation is just the debt collector. Just remember that 70% of wealth in the US is inherited so the argument that taxation is not only dumb, but actually kind of offensive. How dare they take my money! I worked ard to be a CEO's son!
I do think that the most slap in the face thing though is that TaxAct has a little thing at the bottom where it tells you where your tax dollars went. Apparently the givernment will use $2100 of my money on the military. Fuck!
I would be more for supporting a 50% tax rate if we cut the defense budget by 2/3 and put the rest into housing, food, college and all healthcare. But then again, we could maintain the current tax rate and get all those things without 2/3 of the defense budget.
I guess I should just be content that with every dollar you get back in your tax return, it's one less dollar used to kill brown people.
Most of all, why do people do their taxes so early? I always hold off until April because I'm lazy. It comes from a long line of laziness. I grew up seeing my dad ask for an extension around April 14th. Then he would wait till October to actually do them.
One thing that I never really understood was rebates. Does the IRS just deliberately overcharge, make some interest on my money and then give it back to you as a kindness? Not entirely, but because of the progressive tax scale its difficult to gauge how much you owe at a certain point in the year so they use the standard deductions and withhold a certain amount. It's all about the Government making interest on it all year. So much so that I've heard tea partiers urge people to claim zero so the feds don't make interest on their money.
The W4 you fill out that sets your estimated tax isn't very accurate and also if the IRS thinks you deliberately underpaid you can get in big trouble. And make no mistake, the IRS is serious in the business of filing against those they believe are not paying the government their share. The IRS has taken down more crooks than the FBI. If you want to destroy a political opponent you use the IRS. See, for example, FDR.
While the US was founded by tax protesters, so not liking taxes may be American as it gets, but remember that it was Taxation without representation. You can stump me by simply telling me that there's not a single person in congress that represents you. They're all owned by corporations.
The incomes of the top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars and as a share of all income in 2007, while the income tax rates they paid fell to a record low, newly disclosed tax data show.
In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its Web site without announcement that were discovered February 16. (For the report, see Tax Analysts Doc 2010-3372 .)
Highlights of that 2007 report include:
* Top 400 earners in America earn ~$345 million per year * Effective tax rate has fallen to its lowest ever at 16.62% * Daily income is $945,000 for top 400 * TWO-THIRDS of Americans pay more in Social Security and Medicare taxes * Since 1992, the top 400 earners have seen their incomes increase by 399% * Bush shut down the "top 400" report * Three hedge fund managers made 3 billion fucking dollars in 2007 * Capital gains are taxed at just 15% but account for 66.3% of income
Today I had to take the day off of work so I could go down to the State Auditor's office to pay my property tax. Yes, it's a time honored tradition twice a year and so conveniently timed right around Christmas. The last time was in April, three days after my birthday.. which means I get the nice gift of giving the state my money for the land that I'm standing on.
Either way you cut it, I'm typically getting squeezed for my money around the time when I will more than likely need it. Last time it was around a long Northern road trip and of course this one is right in front of Christmas. Well, it's more right in front of Hanukkah. For a state the depends on consumer spending, I do think that someone really planned these twice a year payments out poorly.
Me outside of the auditors building... very grumpy
The state auditors office is a pretty odd place. It's located next door to where you would go for Jury duty and all the courts are located in that area, there's the fountain that you saw in 500 days of summer. Considering that his is in the Courthouse area, you wouldn't be surprised when I told you that the security check points/metal detectors for the court house. But in the situation of the Auditors building, there's not any security at the doors. There's no metal detectors, there's nothing.
If anything, there's only some cement poles on the outside. I have to wonder about this. We all hate paying taxes. It's something that is a given, along with Death, but it's not something you get excited to do. Given that the payments come twice a year, specifically before the times when you'll start needing your money to do summer vacation planning and winter holiday shopping, I would think that there would be more people that would attempt to do something crazy in these buildings.
Maybe someone with a bomb strapped on their chest? Maybe some crazed gun men.. something. But the only indication that I can gather is that someone once tried to run their car into the building given the cement pillars outside. If that's the only thing that has happened here, I really gave humanity, especially the people that are in this society too much credit. Then again, considering how people turn a blind eye towards politics, it's only when it comes to the justice system that people get crazy.
I suppose I can't complain too much about this weekday trip to downtown. It's an interesting adventure into Downtown during the middle of the day, something that people seldom seem to do. mainly for good reason, but it also has some advantages. You get to see the wild life in the light of day and enjoy some happy hour specials at the local bars. I choose the Red Wood Bar on this fine day. It's always nice to get away from society and get into a place that looks like a pirate ship. Also a location for 500 days of summer.
I was almost tempted to take the newly open gold line into downtown as parking can often be an issue. But considering there's Art Walk tonight, a car is the better route to go about it. Besides, Art Walk is a special thing. Something to enjoy all the truck foods and look at the downtown flea market. It's really a great experience all around and shouldn't be overlooked.
Downtown in general is a beautiful place to visit. Sure, it's no New York - thou it often plays it on Television/films, it's still a fairly nice downtown area. It's mostly intimidating to outsiders and most people who live in the urban sprawls across Los Angeles. Which is a good thing. It's that best kept secret only know by the few willing to give it a shot and willing to venture out of their comfort zone.. and who aren't afraid of the fake danger that is around this area.
As for the property tax. I went in there, with the slew of other people who felt that they didn't want to trust the post office with their envelopes and paid off their bill to Uncle Sam.. or should I even just say Arnold? I think the added bonus of doing it in person, other than just realizing it's paid off in front of you is the scenery.
The people there.. that is some amazing people watching. Most noticeable is a bag lady with a pile of property papers/folders. I don't know how or why she owns so many plots of land if she's not living in any of them, as is clear by the massive amount of bags she is wearing. I guess I can't judge too much. I am wearing a comic book shirt. But this really confused me. It really makes me wonder about the homeless people in L.A. are they all land owners? There was a time when only they were allowed to vote... Oh, those simpler days.
Along with her I see a lot of older ladies and Asians with folders upon folders. It sort of troubles me that I'm surrounded by what seems to be a lot of slum lords. It's like waiting in line in court and realizing that you're standing next to a lot of criminals. Sure, they aren't all that way.. But I would be surprised if the majority wasn't.
That idea does lead to a bigger issue. Why would anyone want to own property? Let me tell you that it's very simple that anything you get will be a large money pit. My place, to put it kindly, has been a huge money pit. I would have more fun digging a hole, tossing gas in there and then tossing bags of money into it. At the very least I'll be a lot warmer with this open flame, all things considered..
Many newspaper writers and industry experts claimed that now, specifically, is the best time to purchase a property. However, they fail to inform you that although now may relatively be the "best" time to buy or own a home or property, you should never actually go out and do so. Their claims are the equivalent of saying "medical technology is so advanced that now is the best time to have your head surgically removed and replaced with large breast implants." even though that course of medical action will leave you with the same outcome of being a property owner.. You would be a huge boob head.
Every time I hear someone complain about having to pay rent and wishing they could own their own place I sort of die inside a little. Oh how the grass is always greener. I sometimes wish I had an apartment because of the costs of ownership. Add in that whole idea of waking up at 7am, chugging a beer and blasting the music loud in your living room is not always as easy when you have to compete with the neighbors blasting Mexican folk music from their cars or honking to signal whomever they are picking up to come out as their ride is now there.
At some point in your life, after you have mistakenly became a home owner, you will move on to the next stage of insanity in becoming a do-it-yourself idiot. It's unavoidable. Even if you have an apartment or live in your folks basement, one day this bug will hit you and you will be called upon to build or fix something. Instead of taking the proper and smart advice of hiring those expensive contractors that cost $100 an hour and steal your underwear, you'll choose NOT to use them because, who has that kind of money or frilly underwear to spare? Think of learning these lifelong skills as an investment in yourself. Much like investing in Nigerian stocks....
I don't know how many small things have broken, how many contractors I have been through and how many times I have fixed and refixed the same things over and over again and it's no where near getting any better in terms of interior looks. I think I have made it a new years resolution for the last few years to finally fix it up. I'm sure this place will be my grave. Till then I suppose I'll be in line at the Auditors office twice a year looking at Bag lady. Maybe this finally puts it into prospective. Bag lady wasn't always like that. I bet she was once a young and beautiful women who defied the cultural ideas and became a property owner, buying some property that needed "a little fixing up", but the years went by and the hardships of the job paid their toll and now here she is. Bag lady in line paying property tax for a bunch of sticks barely holding up a mountain of mold and termites.
What I'm trying to say here is that you should love the fact that you can write a check to the landlord at the beginning of the month and be done with it. Damn you lucky bastards..
The great state of South Carolina is putting its own sick twist on Black Friday with a tax holiday on firearm purchases.
Not cars.
Not clothes.
Certainly not books.
Just guns.
For the 48 hours following Thanksgiving, gun buyers will enjoy a break of up to 9% in state and local taxes.
Firearms traffickers are not expected to pass the savings on to New York criminals, but what is called "the extrava-gun-za" and "Second Amendment Weekend" is sure to help South Carolina stay among the top five states that provide 85% of the illegal handguns recovered in New York City.
One of the other top states is Florida, believed to be the source of at least 40 guns city undercover cops bought in the last three months, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes said.
The tax holiday for firearms in South Carolina was first tacked onto a 2008 bill that provided similar breaks for energy efficient appliances.
Gov. Mark Sanford vetoed the legislation, though not because he disapproves of guns. He recently repealed the state's one-gun-a-month restriction.
Sanford disapproves of tax holidays, though he subsequently slipped away on a holiday of another kind, this with his mistress in Argentina.
The legislature overrode the tax holiday veto thanks to the efforts of Rep. Mike Pitts, the gun amendment's sponsor. The South Carolina Supreme Court then ruled the bill violated the "one subject rule" of the state's constitution, which bars multiple matters in a single bill.
The legislature solved the problem by dropping the energy efficiency part and keeping the firearms in time for this year's Black Friday. That was no doubt welcome news to the state's gun shops, which outnumber McDonald's in the Palmetto State by four to one.
Even without a tax holiday, South Carolina gun shops sold a half-million handguns in a 10-year period. The state's population is only 4.5 million.
The number of gun sales is expected to grow ever higher thanks to Pitts, who also sponsored a bill that reduced the age for possessing a handgun in South Carolina from 21 to 18.
"If my daughter were driving, as a 19- or 20-year-old, to Charleston," Pitts said the other day, "I could put my handgun in the glove compartment of my car and she could drive to Charleston without being a felon."
Pitts also is pushing the "South Carolina Firearms Freedom Act," which proposes to exempt guns manufactured in South Carolina from all federal restrictions.
Pitts is untroubled by statistics showing South Carolina is a leading supplier of illegal guns to New York and other cities. He applies what apparently passes for logic down there. "It's not our lax gun laws. It's our high crime-rate that causes the problems," he said the other day.
Pitts sought to illustrate his position by noting that a burglar had recently broken into his home and stolen "about a dozen guns."
"What's happening is people break into my home, steal my guns and get a premium price by taking it to other states and selling them," Pitts said.
Meanwhile, in Pitts' big extrava-gun-za, firearms traffickers will be able to enjoy a Black Friday tax holiday at gun shops across South Carolina, from Dead Bang Guns & Automatics to Freedom Guns and Pawn, The Gun Doctor and Pappy's Guns.
Monday, I gave a call to Woody's Pawn & Jewelry in Orangeburg, one of 15 gun shops Mayor Bloomberg cited in 2006 for making an illegal sale to an undercover. At the time, Woody's sold 98 guns that were connected to crimes in New York City.
I got as far as saying I was from the New York Daily News.
"I don't care to comment to anything in New York," owner Chan Holman said.
This is what Mayor Bloomberg had to say about the tax-free gun sale: "Law-abiding citizens have every right to buy a gun, but South Carolina is a top exporter of guns used in crimes. First we'd like to see South Carolina repair and enforce its lax gun laws."
Holman obviously disagrees. He told another reporter he expects a big jump in business come Black Friday.
"I'm even thinking about tearing down a building next to the store and using it for parking," Holman said. "We'll be open an hour early and staying open later depending on the crush of business. ... We have a lot of inventory to get rid of."
So... we have a black Friday sale on guns. Literally, this is modern America summed up in a single idea. The worse part of all this is they acknowledge that their guns are being connected to crimes in major cities. at a disproportionately high rate. Way to go and help the rest of the nation, South Carolina. Being the source of 85% of illegal firearms in a major US city sounds like a pretty big deal.
I suppose we should all gas up the car and get your credit cards out, cause we're gonna need some assault weapons to prevent Obama's ground troops from forcing their MARXIST HEALTH CARE on us Teabaggers!
I know what you're thinking.. What is South Carolina like? Well, there's really only two options. Savannah and Charleston. The rest is a complete lost cause.
Savannah still has homes that were built in the late 1600's still standing. Which means that Savannah is full of tourist. In the old manors south of Broad you can still see the iron spikes rising from court yard walls that were placed to keep the slaves in, and the little stone steps people used when getting out of horsedrawn carriages. It's a lot of antique shops and moss and shit. It's tiny compared to Charleston and is somehow surrounded by more ghetto. I suppose you should come here if you liked the novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Charleston, on the other hand is completely awesome if you're a drunk.. or you like culture. A trip there does provide you with some pretty good culturally enriching moments when, if you're like me, you end up wandering drunkenly through Charleston at 4 am and just have to piss, only to realize that you are letting loose all over a prerevolution brick wall. Really, the only redeeming thing about Charleston is that it's designed around drunken wandering/pissing on things you'll never afford. Yeah, whenever I travel I make sure to get drunk and wander (a hobby) and Charleston is one of the more interesting cities to be drunk in.
But enough about my clearly inappropriate behavior. Let's look at this situation again. Because while I placed in bold a lot of it, there's an even bigger part that I missed out in first reading it that I glanced back at and just wondered what the hell was wrong with society. You see, the legislature solved the problem by dropping the energy efficieny part and keeping the firearms in time to make it pass for Black Friday.
If you're not getting what I'm saying let me quote it again because it's amazing.
The tax holiday for firearms in South Carolina was first tacked onto a 2008 bill that provided similar breaks for energy efficient appliances.
The South Carolina Supreme Court then ruled the bill violated the "one subject rule" of the state's constitution, which bars multiple matters in a single bill.
The legislature solved the problem by dropping the energy efficiency part and keeping the firearms in time for this year's Black Friday.
Who cares about the climate, we need guns! I like to think I'm usually joking about the south being so god damn backwards, but good fuck, that is some onion level shit right there. No way would I believe that we're in America and this shit flies.
So this Black Friday, try not to shoot someone while waiting in line at the Wal*mart...
consumerism (n.): other people buying stuff they don't need and/or I don't want
We're about two weeks after taxes were due. I hope that you're not still in line at the post office or even worse, taking off your shoes to count how much you owe the state. Believe you me, they're going to try to get it. As for giving the returns back... Yeah, the check's in the mail, so to speak. But for all you folks who went teabagging, here's a single picture speaking a 1000 words.
Oh wait, the only thing that picture is putting in your face is that people don't like taxes. In fact, some even want zero taxes. I guess that's pretty normal. Who likes paying for services that you may not partake in. But, much like an onion, this has layers and layers in it. The simple picture is worth 1000 words simply because it tells you a lot about it. This picture needs 1000 words that aren't written on poster board size paper.
Let's see where your taxes actually go to and how ironic this picture is to be protesting them in this context.
All those things around them are bought and paid for by the tax dollars you put in. It's sort of ironic, much like wearing a Che t-shirt to protest capitalism. That is unless you got the shirt for free or something.
I have a libertarian friend that will complain about taxes in the same sentence as complaining about how the roads need to be fixed. Maybe someone just handed them those signs as well but they all appear to be literate. A big thank you to the government for the publicly funded school systems.
Another one the picture fails to get across is that there is no poisonous food pointing in everyone's stomach. Thanks to the tax paid health inspectors and food standard boards. Nor any mention of the Medicare/Medicaid that has invariably kept everyone in that picture alive and healthy to some degree.
To add to another level of irony in all this, I can tell from the street sign of "no right on red" and the type of stoplight in traffic lights that this picture was taken on a NY state maintained road. Even funnier when you consider that NYC basically pays the bills for upstate NY as far as taxes-to-spending goes.
The downside to having your birthday before the 15th is that everyone is so wrapped up into figuring out the complex process of doing their taxes to even care. Let alone have any money to get you anything that doesn't come from the 99 cent store. Ok, let's be honest, I'm sure my birthday could be on FREE MONEY FOR EVERYONE DAY and I'll more than likely still not get a gift. That's how I roll, yo.
The $12.8 billion tax increase signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger comes in the throes of the worst recession in a generation. It will cost more than $300 for every man, woman and child in California - $1,200 taken from the discretionary spending of an average family of four - either in direct tax increases or in tax-driven price increases as businesses pass along their costs to consumers.
Set aside all the ideological arguments about taxes: simply as a practical matter, Gov. Schwarzenegger has just made the state's budget woes - and its economy - significantly worse.
On June 28, 1991, the California Assembly began debate on what was then the biggest tax increase in California's history: a $7 billion tax hike pushed by Gov. Pete Wilson that included increases in sales, income and vehicle taxes.
If there's a bright side to this, at least now coming up with a tip is going to be a little easier. And you queers who keep tipping only 10%, come on. I know times are tough but now all you have to do is double your tax and you have some basics to giving your waiter a livable tip.
Clearly tensions are running wild. It's not good to have uncle sam pick your pockets all year long in your paycheck, let alone have it come time for the bill to see if you've paid over what you should or if you still owe. It's a crap shoot and well, it generally sucks
But there's a revolution brewin', but it ain't tea that's on the stove. No sir, places all over the good ol' US of A are gonna show that a day in which you get money back from the Gubmint ain't good enough. No no, this is a day in which places all over the country are going to get out into gathering spots of mass consumerism and really stick it to Obama administration and hopes to achieve it's goal of...
uh...
stop paying taxes, I guess.
These folks are pretty silly to begin with. Who the fuck calls themselves Tea baggers? With a name like that you're just asking for no one to take you seriously. Taxes may suck, but after living my entire adult life in the Bush administration, this is the first time I am NOT ashamed of my country.
I can only imagine what these folks think like "I can't believe obama is going to raise my taxes from $323 to $341 - that's a whole $18 I could spend on a tax day t-shirt
RON PAUL 2012! "
Do these people realize that the taxes that we are paying this year were still Bush's plan. So I'm not sure where this hate for Obama is coming from. Oh yeah, morons. My bad. This is honestly one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. Let's protest Obama's tax cuts and raises that haven't even been implemented yet! How dare Obama not fix everything in three months. Change, my ass.
Even if you were going to harp on what Obama hasn't done and should focus on the shit Obama has personally done (not getting rid of warrantless wiretapping, allowing Republicans to barter about releasing Bush torture memos, not going far enough with stimulus and bank nationalization, etc) I'd be fine with these protests/things. It would be freedom of speech in some productive manner. This though, is pretty fuckin' stupid petty shit.
Pick up a history book, my dear. We've done far worse.
Here's a reminder folks that this is a protest over raising the top income tax bracket from 36% to 39%, a level that was in place just 8 short years ago, and a level far below what it was at for the vast majority of the 20th century, by a portion of the population who will almost entirely be outside of the affected tax bracket, and that this is unironically being touted as a similar justification for revolution as the conditions that sparked off the American revolution. In short, you protesters are fucking morons.
That's not even getting to the fact that this isn't even slightly original. Can't they come up with something original sounding? I get that they're pissed at the government, but it's a completely different issue from what was going on during the Boston Tea Party. Call it the Pork Party or at least be somewhat original, instead of trying to play on some odd nostalgia, attempting to turn modern-day neo-con mouthpieces into "patriots".
I suspect that many people tomorrow that will be protesting won't even know the historical background of the Boston Tea Party. Maybe I'll attend one of these with a cup of hot water. Free tea, yo. Better yet I'm going to disguise myself as an illegal alien and dump used general motors cars into the San Francisco Bay. At least that way it'll actually be accurate to the Boston tea party. That's what our founding fathers would've done. At least in the world of Glenn Beck.
I can see why the teabaggers want these days brought back; those striped stockings are SO slimming
I'm going to have some tea tomorrow. Probably Earl Grey. Don't think I'll be able to convince anyone to have a tea party with me though. But the mentality of thse fuckwads on taxes is the same on tea. Which is that no one in America gives a shit about tea. Which goes hand in hand with what they feel like towards their fellow American. "I don't want to help everyone else if it costs me anything at all." True patriotism right there.
I suppose since us democrats protested Bush nonstop for eight years, it's the republicans turn to have a day of fun cardboard sign making and poorly constructed chants. In the end, you should pay your god damn taxes though. Even if some of it is going to shitty bank bail out, there's still a lot of it going to road construction, social security and other medicare programs.
Sure, I wont steal the government. Perhaps some taxes should go to schools because a comma would change that completely.
This year I actually had someone else do my taxes. Something about a pile of freelance paychecks as well as my 20th century one really made it a confusing. Thankfully I got a call today that told me I'm getting a sizable refund. That's Hollywood accounting for you.
Perhaps with uncle Sam taking from your wallets, some interesting bit of news would be useful. Don't worry about your taxes because Robots Just Went Sentient.
Once was a writer, tho, you see words to your left, so I guess I'm still that to some degree.
You can find my scribbles and mind ranting on this and various other places as a means to keep the creative, satirical and costco talk muscles worked out.
Was once apart of the tv industry, but I'm sure the NDA's are still in effect so let's move on from that. Now I spend my time slinging beer and keeping a building in one piece.
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