Posted on 10/13/2011 11:02:38 AM PDT by justsaynomore
i hope laffer campaigns for cain.
Good for you. It does take a change of mindset and it is an effort to get off the debt treadmill once you're on it.
I think the problem many have is that they spend too much time looking at their neighbors driveway, when in fact, the neighbor is on the treadmill too and wish they could get off.
A good, used car will get you to work and has already gone through the largest part of its depreciation. You don't get the new car rush, and the neighbors don't envy you quite so much, but it's better to look poor and be rich than look rich and be poor.
I've blown my share of money in my time of course, but being debt free is true freedom. There's nothing else like it, not even a shiny, new car.
Fundamental Techniques in Handling PeopleFor YOUR convenience I've high-lighted some of the many things I have done for you and your sake on this thread.
- Don't criticize, condemn, or complain.
- Give honest and sincere appreciation.
- Arouse in the other person an eager want.
Six Ways to Make People Like You
- Become genuinely interested in other people.
- Smile.
- Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
- Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
- Talk in terms of the other person's interest.
- Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.
Twelve Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking
- The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
- Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say "You're Wrong."
- If you're wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
- Begin in a friendly way.
- Start with questions to which the other person will answer yes.
- Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
- Let the other person feel the idea is his or hers.
- Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
- Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
- Appeal to the nobler motives.
- Dramatize your ideas.
- Throw down a challenge.
Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment
--via Wikiepedia entry on Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
- Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
- Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
- Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
- Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
- Let the other person save face.
- Praise every improvement.
- Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
- Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
- Make the other person happy about doing what you suggest.
Oh, And By The Way, the way people show that they KNOW and UNDERSTAND something is by re-expressing it their own words. That's just why I kinda doubt you understand Mr. Cain's plan. I KNOW, that per the questions I asked I do not, and since I read over Mr. Cain's outline given per your link am even less sure. I was sincerely hoping that your esteemed majestic supreme personhood, that is YOU, could help. I didn't think it was beyond you.
Something about having a child really made us re-evaluate our spending habits. :)
Now do it or get lost!Since that seems to pass a a polite way of asking in your part of the universe.
What stops the rates from going sky high now?
THE TAXPAYER.
I agree.
This alone would take more power away from the left than you can imagine. Now combine that with taking away the racist card and the left could be crushed for a decade or two. Gotta Love it.
You can even buy a vacation now for $9-$9-$9...
http://p.p0.com/YesConnect/HtmlMessagePreview?a=wChN1esW3Rq0kt1tqomxnj6C
Arguably, the lowest income tax rate is 10%. The payroll tax rate is 7.65% for employees, and 15.3% for the self-employed.
So (again arguably) the lowest tax rate is 17.65% (25.3% for the self-employed). That 17.65% is the federal tax people currently pay on every dollar they spend on food and other essentials (i.e., rent, etc.).
Under 9-9-9, 18% would be the lowest tax rate on spent money. This would be paid on food and other essentials.
The big losers would be those who earn so little they don’t pay the 10% income tax and only pay the 7.65% payroll tax. The big winners will be the self-employed.
I already pay taxes, and I don't particularly like the idea of having to pay nearly $4000 in taxes if I purchase a $25,000 vehicle
It looks like your state has a 6.25% sales tax already from your comment, so I'll use that in the computation.
Current retail price: $25,000
Current retail sales tax: $1,562.50
Current total cost: $26,562.50
The current system has approx 22% of taxes built into the cost of every retail item, which will be eliminated under the 999 plan and replaced by a 9% rate.
999 retail price: $21,255.00 ($25,000 - 22%) + 9% 999 income tax
999 local sales tax: $1,328.44 (because it's on a lower base rate, your local sales taxes will go down).
999 federal sales tax: $1,912.95
999 total cost: $24,496.39
You would save $2,066.11 under the 999 plan over the current plan. The 999 plan is a good deal for you, if you are planning on buying a car.
On to your second concern: congress could raise the rates on the sales tax. Consider this:
Congress could raise the rates of the social security tax.
Congress could raise the rates of the medicare tax.
Congress could raise the rates of the unemployment tax.
Congress could raise the rates of the deatch tax.
Congress could raise the rates of the top tax bracket.
Congress could raise the rates of the second to to income tax bracket.
Congress could raise the rates of the middle income tax bracket.
Congress could raise the rates of the second to lowest income tax bracket.
Congress could raise the rates of the lowest income tax bracket.
Congress could raise the rates of the capital gains tax.
Congress could raise the rates of the reparations tax.
Congress could raise the rates of corporate tax.
Congress could raise the rates of the alternative minimum tax (amt).
Congress could raise the rates on all these taxes now. And most of these tax streams are hidden/low-profile tax streams. 999 eliminates all these tax stream, and replaces them with a single, in-your-fact, gets-everyone-mad-as-hell-if-they-raise-it tax stream.
Which is more likely to get raised by congress? An in-your-face sales tax, or one of the multiple, low-profile streams in the current system?
The only problem with that objection though, is congress does that today with the current system. It's like saying you don't want to risk going out in the doctor, because it's cold outside and you're worried your toes will become frostbitten, even though your toes are forstbitten right now, and the only way to cure them is to go to the doctor!
Basicly, you're accepting a bad situation, because trying to make things better might put in the exact same bad situation you are right now.
Under 9-9-9 17.19% is the highest tax rate (I assume you meant highest).
gross income: $50,000
999 income tax: $4,500
max 999 sales tax: $4,095 (50,000 - 4,500) * .09
effective tax rate: 17.19%
That's below your computed lowest current effective tax rate of 17.65%.
It reduces the productive wedge holding our economy down. We’ll see 4-6% growth for decades.
There are only two types of politicians: Income Growth or Income Redistributive.
Cain is income growth all the way.
You said you don't like the idea of paying nearly $4000 taxes on a $25,000 vehicle. As Brookhaven said, that implies that you're paying 6.25% in sales tax now. So apparently your voting district doesn't have a problem paying 6.25% in sales tax, or they wouldn't have voted for it. Apparently there was some benefit to the community that the voters approved of, so they voted for a 6.25% sales tax. It would be the same with 999. Either it gets voted in, or it doesn't. Either people see the cost/benefit of the 9% tax, or they don't. Either we get services for the 9% that we approve of, or we don't vote for it (and by “we”, I mean Congress). But just because Cain promotes it doesn't make it law.
Secondly, let's not forget that it is your choice to purchase a new vehicle for $25,000, rather than buying a used vehicle for $25,000. Under Cain's plan, if you buy used, you don't pay that sales tax.
Third, as to everyone’s concern that 9% can become 20% or 30% in the future. This is true. It can. But our current tax rates can too.
The difference with Cain's plan is that if every man, woman, and child in the United States is affected by a raise in Cain's 9% sales tax. So everyone in the United States will scream bloody murder for every one-tenth-of-one-percent that they try to raise it. Because, as others point out, those people who are currently sucking off the teat of the rest of us will suddenly feel the burden (Heaven forbid!) of something called TAXES. That means the 50% of this country who are not currently paying taxes will have a reason to VOTE DIFFERENTLY in the future when it comes to raising taxes. So it will be difficult (but admittedly not impossible) to raise the national sales tax in the future.
This will just blow out both ends of the curve. i.e., if you think you’ve seen social unrest now...
As for the poor, 9% of 0 income is still 0 revenue. Only now, they’ll be stretched for the necessities (as if they aren’t already) with a 9% sales tax on top of what they already pay at the county level (in Chicago, this would be almost 20%). We can talk about the welfare state like it’s the 1990s, but reality is, a lot of formerly middle-class men and women (and their offspring) have joined the ranks of the poor with this massive downturn, and history shows that when jobs are created, they won’t be the ones getting hired. They will become a permanent underclass of the educated and impoverished. Young, freshly educated labor coming out of the college ranks will be hired, not the disillusioned middle management castoffs, who still have families to raise and educate.
I know it’s not a popular opinion around here, but if we implement a tax system that, by design, targets the poor, we’re going to get cosmically screwed 50 ways to Sunday.
As I mentioned in my post above, this makes sense if it's 1995. There's a much wider demographic now that lives off of credit cards and food stamps. A lot of people "sucking off the teat", are college-educated and unemployable now. There's 14 million unemployed. There's 400,000 new unemployment claims every week. When businesses expand, they're not going to hire them back. They're going to go after fresh meat. So, I think it's no longer accurate to stereotype the poor as the old-school welfare queens and high school dropouts. Not in this day and age.
I rented a room from a grade school PE teacher when I got out of college. She had been teaching for 12 years, and she was very disgruntled that I made as much money as she did, working my first job. I have a Science Degree and was performing soil and groundwater investigations. She was teaching 4th grade Gym class.
What she didn't realize is that I had to work 50-60 hours every week, 51 weeks a year, for my paycheck. She had to work 40 hours a week (no papers to grade, no tests to write), for roughly 34 weeks a year. She had Christmas break, Spring break, and of course Summer break. She got to work a summer job, as a River Rafting Guide in Idaho! So she earned more money doing something wildly fun and exciting, during her summer break. I worked 50-60 hrs/week all summer long, on salary, with no overtime wages.
A ballot measure came up about some kind of tax that had something to do with teacher's pay. She was obviously strongly in favor of it. I was born hating taxes, so I was against it. She whined and complained about how teachers don't make enough money and it's not fair. Not fair to whom? Who chose to become a teacher? Did you know what teachers were paid when you chose that profession?
My point is, rather than evaluating the ballot measure and the tax referendum on its merits, all the Teachers blindly voted for it because it affected THEIR paychecks. And that is exactly what will happen with 999. All the accountants, tax lawyers, and IRS employees, and their families and friends, will vote against 999 simply because it will affect their paychecks.
I swear, people should not be allowed to vote themselves a raise, in any profession or at any company.
I currently make my living because of certain governmental regulations that exist. But if a vote came up that was good for the COUNTRY, but it happened to eliminate my job, I would vote for what is good for the country, and I would find another job. Sadly, fewer and fewer people in our country would do the same.
If for all these years everyone — even the poor — had to pay something in federal income taxes, we would never have accumulated at $14 trillion national debt and almost $120 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
Our disastrous, and now probably fatal, financial situation resulted from the fact that when you have an ever-smaller number of people paying the full freight for an ever-larger number of people who pay nothing, you’ll have an ever-larger number of people voting for the pols that promise the most government spending.
Give everyone a little skin in the game, and even the poorest, most uneducated taxpayer will ask, Will this great new government program mean my taxes will go up?
Oh I absolutely agree it would positively affect everyone’s attitude toward taxes. What’s unknown is whether such a plan can reach it’s goal without adding a lot of misery to people who are already suffering in this downturn.
My other concern is that this will be a convenient excuse for companies who dump healthcare to refuse “cost of living” increases; i.e., “Hey your income tax just got slashed in half, you can buy your own insurance now and we don’t owe you an extra dime in compensation.”
And ironically, although I’m in favor of Cain, it’s not because of the tax plan. It’s his ardent pro-life position and what he can do for the Supreme Court.
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