In The News Today...

Quote: DRich

Is there a website out there that breaks down what different households would pay in taxes relative to the old plan? I would like to see it broken down in $10k increments of income showing both married and single filers with 1 to 5 kids.

Average chumps like me should be getting the biggest tax breaks. Single 40 to 50k. No family so no child exemptions . People like me support the country with our taxes.
Yet
Trump paid no taxes and his bracket getting the huge breaks.

Quote: terapined

I have absolutely no doubt he is a 1 term President.
Best thing for the Republican party, Trump step down, Pence becomes President and runs in 2020. No way Trump gets reelected.

I had no doubt he would lose 2016 in a landslide....

With someone as corrupt as Donald, never count anything out. He was willing to go to a hostile foreign government for help winning once, I don't see why he wouldn't try again.

Quote: ams288

. He was willing to go to a hostile foreign government for help winning once, I don't see why he wouldn't try again.

I don't know anything about his having gone to Israel for help winning the election.

Quote: Fleastiff

I don't know anything about his having gone to Israel for help winning the election.

Israel? Neither do I.

Quote: ams288

Israel? Neither do I.

Oh well, when you said 'hostile foreign government' I just naturally assumed you meant Israel.

The trouble with Amtrak

In the news today was some gibberish about 'we don't know it Positive Train Control rather than Centralized Train Control would have prevented this and must wait for the NTSB to tell us".

Utter drivel. Positive Train Control enforces the speed limit, Centralized Train Control does not detect nor enforce speed limits, only promulgates them.
Now matters of cost, time, etc. may play a role but we do not need some government pronouncement to tell us the obvious.

The conductor was unfamiliar wth the route, the engineer had SOME prior experience with it. This seems strange. 80 in a 30 zone is strange but did they see the 30mph sign? How large? What warnings in their paperwork.

It appears there was no attempt to manually slow the train. Throttle not retarded, brake not manually applied. Complete oblivion in the cab?? Not even a last moments 'jamb on the brakes, flat wheels be damned' instinctive action.

Quote: terapined

Average chumps like me should be getting the biggest tax breaks. Single 40 to 50k. No family so no child exemptions . People like me support the country with our taxes.
Yet
Trump paid no taxes and his bracket getting the huge breaks.

So if "Trump paid no taxes" why on earth would he want the system changed? As stupid as you think he is, if he was paying no taxes under the last 8 years of Obama rule, you think he would want to change that? And if Trump was paying "no taxes", do you think his billionaire friends were not doing the same thing? I'm too lazy to find the link, but Trump and his billionaire and millionaire friends in the 'top 1%' pay half the taxes. Or something like that.

So the question is always the same, we know the top pay the majority of the taxes, but how much should that be? If you believe that a top earners should pay the same as 1000 families making 60k a year, and they feel they should pay the same as 900 families making 60k a year, how do you decide which is "FAIR"?

Quote: Fleastiff

I don't know anything about his having gone to Israel for help winning the election.

All candidates do, google it.

Quote: SOOPOO

So if "Trump paid no taxes" why on earth would he want the system changed? As stupid as you think he is, if he was paying no taxes under the last 8 years of Obama rule, you think he would want to change that? And if Trump was paying "no taxes", do you think his billionaire friends were not doing the same thing? I'm too lazy to find the link, but Trump and his billionaire and millionaire friends in the 'top 1%' pay half the taxes. Or something like that.

So the question is always the same, we know the top pay the majority of the taxes, but how much should that be? If you believe that a top earners should pay the same as 1000 families making 60k a year, and they feel they should pay the same as 900 families making 60k a year, how do you decide which is "FAIR"?

Trump himself bragged he "paid no taxes". How is anybody supposed to know if that's true? He should release his taxes. It's important for people in a democracy to know if their leaders are personally benefitting from legislation they write, vote for, or sign.

It's also wrong to conflate income taxes with all federal taxes when talking about what people pay. Everybody pays FICA taxes, which is not insubstantial, and self-employed pay both halves. Employers also consider their half of FICA as benefits and compensation in figuring out how many people they can afford to hire.

FICA tops out just north of 100k, so it's regressive as to percentage of pay. It also isn't paid on other types of income, like carried interest or capital gains, both given special, lower rates even before this bill, which lowered them further.

As to "fair", that's a can of worms.

First off, I don't think people should get more income tax money than they paid. The tax code should not be substituting for welfare. But if deductions EITC etc take some one down to net zero, they're worse off than I ever want to be.

I don't think it's unfair to ask the richest people to pay a higher percentage. Not a fan of flat tax. But if it were a true flat tax on ALL income from ALL sources, it would probably be fairer than what's going on already, that this bill just makes worse.

What a joke. Trump just had Ben Carson make remarks/prayer of some kind, and he praised God for the "unity of Congress". Ummmm....no.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Trump himself bragged he "paid no taxes". How is anybody supposed to know if that's true? He should release his taxes. It's important for people in a democracy to know if their leaders are personally benefitting from legislation they write, vote for, or sign.

It's also wrong to conflate income taxes with all federal taxes when talking about what people pay. Everybody pays FICA taxes, which is not insubstantial, and self-employed pay both halves. Employers also consider their half of FICA as benefits and compensation in figuring out how many people they can afford to hire.

FICA tops out just north of 100k, so it's regressive as to percentage of pay. It also isn't paid on other types of income, like carried interest or capital gains, both given special, lower rates even before this bill, which lowered them further.

As to "fair", that's a can of worms.

First off, I don't think people should get more income tax money than they paid. The tax code should not be substituting for welfare. But if deductions EITC etc take some one down to net zero, they're worse off than I ever want to be.

I don't think it's unfair to ask the richest people to pay a higher percentage. Not a fan of flat tax. But if it were a true flat tax on ALL income from ALL sources, it would probably be fairer than what's going on already, that this bill just makes worse.

What a joke. Trump just had Ben Carson make remarks/prayer of some kind, and he praised God for the "unity of Congress". Ummmm....no.

So the $38 million he paid in 2005 is nothing? You really do have blinders on when it comes to Trump BBB the hate gets in the way of clear thinking. Let me know when you get over the $38M since that is the least he has already paid even if he only paid that one year.