Obama/Biden tax plan

I hear on the news today a polital analylist say democrats have a history of having difficulty backing up promises they make during their campaign. Obama promised a tax cut for 95% of americans. I read an article on yahoo that said Obama already plans on delaying the tax cut, and Obama said if you make less than 250,000 a year you wont see a tax increase, then he said 200,000, then Biden said 150,000 in the vp debate. Now that Obama is president elect, how many of you believe he will stick with his word.

In 2000, the big issue during the debates was Social Security. Bush won, then went ahead and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to fix it. No administration will be able to keep all their campaign promises, but I think Obama will do a good job of prioritizing.

well said. but i sure hope he doesnt raise my taxes and make some bitchy excuse about it. he said he wont raise my taxes and if he does then he lied. no excuses. im just afraid for my income i live in cali where state taxes are already rediculous.

urmomis100 said:

well said. but i sure hope he doesnt raise my taxes and make some bitchy excuse about it. he said he wont raise my taxes and if he does then he lied. no excuses. im just afraid for my income i live in cali where state taxes are already rediculous.

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You're right, The California Franchise Tax Board is a total piece of shit. I know, I lived there for 40 years.

urmomis100 said:

well said. but i sure hope he doesnt raise my taxes and make some bitchy excuse about it. he said he wont raise my taxes and if he does then he lied. no excuses. im just afraid for my income i live in cali where state taxes are already rediculous.

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On the bright side, if Obama is as bad as expected, and the kind of epic failure that can be anticipated based on historical precedent we'll kick him out of office in four years.

TheBrutalTruth said:

On the bright side, if Obama is as bad as expected, and the kind of epic failure that can be anticipated based on historical precedent we'll kick him out of office in four years.

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Oh, you mean like Clinton was?

Doctor Pot said:

Oh, you mean like Clinton was?

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Okay I gotta ask, do you know all this stuff off the top of your head?

mane2008 said:

Okay I gotta ask, do you know all this stuff off the top of your head?

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That Clinton was reelected overwhelmingly despite having policies not unlike Obama's? I guess I figured everyone would know that.

Doctor Pot said:

That Clinton was reelected overwhelmingly despite having policies not unlike Obama's? I guess I figured everyone would know that.

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Not pertaining to that quote it just seems you man many other's know too much about politics and aren't political analysts.

You don't hafta to be a political analysts, you just hafta pay attention and read, read, read.

I have been 'into' politics for years, but never have I had the chance to know so much as since I have been on the net. So much out here to learn.

Besides, me and Dr.Pot have prolly been around for some time (no offense, Pot, but I am two months away from the big 4 0 myself, I kinda figured you ain't a spring chicken either) and some of us have just lived it.

Like how we saw the Taliban being formed in the 80s, during Reagan's time, but we called them Freedom Fighters cuz they were helping us fight Russia at the time (in Packistan), and now the same ones we trained are using that training against us......

I was around when the Taliban (and yes, it was called that) was on the news. God, I still remember the Ollie North shit.

I hate getting old.

Doctor Pot said:

Oh, you mean like Clinton was?

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How about Yimminy Carter?

As for Clinton.

CLINTON'S ECONOMIC PLAN: The Campaign; Gambling That a Tax-Cut Promise Was Not Taken Seriously - New York Times


Clinton now Says: The 'Big Things' Never Included his Tax-cut Vow, - International Herald Tribune

Workers World [Sam Marcy]: Clinton's fundamental economic problem (Feb. 25, 1993)

But he was re-elected, no denying that.

Doctor Pot said:

In 2000, the big issue during the debates was Social Security. Bush won, then went ahead and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to fix it. No administration will be able to keep all their campaign promises, but I think Obama will do a good job of prioritizing.

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I remember him attempting to remedy social security. Multiple times, they all got shot down by you know who.

I thought it was a decent plan
Strengthening Social Security

puffdamagikdragon said:

Besides, me and Dr.Pot have prolly been around for some time (no offense, Pot, but I am two months away from the big 4 0 myself, I kinda figured you ain't a spring chicken either) and some of us have just lived it.

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Err, I'm 25. I do read a lot though. Plus, forums offer the benefit of being able to look something up to make sure you're right before you say it. Something I wish some people here would take advantage of more often.

ZenMaster said:

I remember him attempting to remedy social security. Multiple times, they all got shot down by you know who.

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He wanted to privatize it though. After the last few months, can you imagine how deep we'd be in shit if social security was privatized? And who exactly was shooting down his attempts? Congress? Republicans have controlled congress from 1994 to 2006.

Doctor Pot said:

He wanted to privatize it though. After the last few months, can you imagine how deep we'd be in shit if social security was privatized? And who exactly was shooting down his attempts? Congress? Republicans have controlled congress from 1994 to 2006.

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Democrats called in 'Private accounts' Repub's called in 'Personal accounts'.
Its all about the label.

When you say 'privatize' you mean a voluntary decision by those who actually pay it to have a say in where and how 4 points of the tax would be placed and where. Heaven forbid the people who pay it actually have a say, even in a small degree.

Economist's View: Social Security Reform Stopped by Democrat?s Radical Economists

Want to Reform Social Security? Stop Spending.

Stopping the Social Security Raid - March 20, 2007 - The New York Sun

CNN.com - Bush: Stop partisan fight on Social Security - Jun 22, 2005

That ignores the way social security works. We don't actually pay into an account that we then have access to when we retire, we pay into a pool. Social security is meant to be a form of social insurance, not be some sort of government-run investment bank. Heck, the first link you gave has a pretty good explanation of the difference:

Economist's View: Social Security is about insurance, not savings

Social Security had a severe cash crunch in 1983. Because of shifting demographics, the program was within months of not having enough money coming in to pay benefits. The government solved its problem by making the problem for workers worse — it raised taxes, cut benefits, and increased the retirement age.
The result was large and growing cash surpluses — more money coming into Social Security in payroll taxes than going out in benefit payments. But Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, which means that the taxes that come in each year are used to pay benefits for retirees that year. There is no mechanism for investing any excess funds that are left over.
Surpluses, which in theory should fund benefits for future retirees, are instead raided by Congress and squandered on unrelated spending programs. The late New York senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, called this "outright thievery."
Here's how the raid works: The surplus payroll tax dollars go into the Social Security Trust Fund, which in turn uses them to buy special issue bonds from the U.S. Treasury.
Then Congress can use those dollars, in the Treasury, to spend on anything it wants. All that Social Security has are the bonds. The bonds pay interest, but Congress raids the interest, too, by simply placing more bonds in the trust fund. The trust fund itself is a filing cabinet in West Virginia — it doesn't have any real funds in it and you probably shouldn't trust it.
President Bush explained this pretty well in a speech in 2005: "You pay your payroll tax, we pay out to current retirees, and then we spend your money on other government programs."
In 2006 this thievery reached a milestone, passing the staggering number of $1 trillion used for programs other than Social Security since 1983. And that's not including interest. That enormous amount of money has allowed both parties in Congress to fund innumerable wasteful programs and pork-barrel projects while concealing the size of the deficit.
Social Security is expected to remain in cash-flow surplus for the next decade, and the raid is scheduled to continue. Under present law, Congress will raid Social Security funds to the tune of $693 billion over the next decade, not including interest. If a tax-increase deal did come together, it would amplify the size of the larceny while doing nothing to make Social Security a better deal for workers.


That sums up my distrust of Social Security whether its called 'insurance' or 'some sort of government-run investment bank'.

I will admit that social security surpluses have been abused. For instance, using them to finance the Bush Tax Cuts was irresponsible. Here's a pretty good explanation of how the system works though:

The Straight Dope: Are the Social Security trust funds a sham?

Yeah, it's a real shame that Bush wasn't able to privatize social security. Look how much better off we would be now if he had succeeded...



I guess you all know that the DOW has been bouncing around 9,000 for the last couple of weeks?--lower now than when the boy wonder took office, right?

urmomis100 said:

I hear on the news today a polital analylist say democrats have a history of having difficulty backing up promises they make during their campaign. Obama promised a tax cut for 95% of americans. I read an article on yahoo that said Obama already plans on delaying the tax cut, and Obama said if you make less than 250,000 a year you wont see a tax increase, then he said 200,000, then Biden said 150,000 in the vp debate. Now that Obama is president elect, how many of you believe he will stick with his word.

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You'll read all kinds of shit on the internet, that's why it's important to cultivate the habit of distinguishing fact from spin. It's also important to get the facts right.

Obama has stated clearly (over and over again in debates and speeches and it's on his web-site) that if you make less than $250,000, you won't see your taxes go up, and if you make less than $200,000, you will get a tax break.

If you're still not getting it, maybe this will help...

If you earn less than $200,000, you will get a tax break.
If you earn more than $200,000, but less than $250,000, your taxes will not change.
If you earn more than $250,000, your taxes will go up.

I hope that's clear.

If you want to know how much of a tax cut to expect next year, you can check right here.

http://taxcut.barackobama.com/

Go ahead. Check.

Biden's figure of $150,000 was a one-off gaffe.

Maybe Clinton should have done the social security thing. Everyone who took advantage of it would be sitting pretty right now even with the economic down turn.