Comments on: Doing The Math On Candidates' Tax Plans

CBS Evening News Crunches The Numbers To Find Out How Each Candidates' Proposed Tax Policy Would Affect Your Wallet

[keyboardman2]

Have you noticed the high gas prices over the summer and the financial crisis we are experiencing now in the fall ....etc., just before Bush leaves office....how strategically planned. And people wanna vote republican for john mccain. How idiotic!!!!

[keyboardman2]

with the taxes and the spending to be done in govt, people are gonna have to remember that whatever deficit we''re going to have left, you can blame it on good ole mr George W Bush. It''s gonna take a long time to clean it up and you can''t necessarily blame it on the next president unless he can balance the budget in 2 years. Don''t we have to be realistic, especially with the mess Bush has left?

[McHineguy]

Going to bed. At least they havent taxed sleeping yet.

[McHineguy]

If we can come up with new innovations then it may be OK, but I get the nagging feeling they will try to ship that overseas as well, as long as the labor imbalance is still there.


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Posted by incog-nito at 02:51 AM : Oct 31, 2008

You could be right and it worries me too. But adding more taxes to our factories will speed the process. THIS TAX PLAN IS A CRAZY WAY TO COMPETE IN WORLD TRADE.

[incog-nito]

Assuming that this analysis is correct, here is my takeaway from it:

At the median income of $50K, which is where most Americans are, McCain''s tax cut is $51 vs. Obama''s $252.

At the top level, somebody making $250K would pay $600 more with Obama''s plan.

Both plans are flawed, but McCain''s plan costs $5 trillions over 10 years vs. $3.5 for Obama.

Don''t know about you, but I can easily see which plan would be better.

[McHineguy]

Let''''s see you make $250,000 a year, and your taxes go up $600. Wow you are really gonna have to tighten up the belt aren''''t you?


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Posted by BBinfla at 02:57 AM : Oct 31, 2008


Not at all. You havent looked very far if you think its that simple. The problem is that our factories operate with stock holders capital. No capital, no factory upgrades, old machines, obsolete products. So, we need investors to send us money instead of sending it to companies in Ireland, Japan, Korea, etc. Investors send money to companies that pay the best dividends AFTER TAXES.

[bbinfla]

Let''s see you make $250,000 a year, and your taxes go up $600. Wow you are really gonna have to tighten up the belt aren''t you?

[bbinfla]

You mean to tell me these people making $250,000 a year are cring their eyes out because they will have to pay $600 dollars more in taxes.

Sorry, but I do not feel your effing pain!

[incog-nito]

There is one possible solution. Americans are pretty resourceful. If we were to work together we could build factories that are 10 times as efficient as those in the third world. Of course we have to work together. Also, we have to get more people working to make things, less people wasting their time at government jobs.

Or, we could just throw in the towel and redistribute what we have.

Posted by Machineguy at 02:35 AM : Oct 31, 2008

I hope you''re right, although I''m not nearly as optimistic. I see in my workplace and those of people I know. First, the factories close down and move overseas. People thought that professional, white-collar office jobs would still be safe, but then the business units start closing down also, leaving only a skeleton crew at home.

If we can come up with new innovations then it may be OK, but I get the nagging feeling they will try to ship that overseas as well, as long as the labor imbalance is still there.

[McHineguy]

Dear Fellow Business Owners,



As a Business owner who employs 30 people, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barack Obama wlll be our next President, and that my taxes and fees, will go up in a BIG way.



To compensate for these increases, I figure, that the Customer, will have to see an increase in my prices to them of about 10%. I will also have to lay off 6 of my employees.



This really bothered me as I believe we are family here and didn''t know how to choose who will have to go. So, this is what I did. I strolled thru the parking lot and found 8 Obama bumper stickers on my employees'' cars. I have decided these folks will be the first to be laid off since they knowingly approved of these changes in tax law and the resulting consequences affecting our business and their jobs.



I can''t think of another fair way to approach this problem. If you have a better idea, let me know.



I''m sending this letter to all the Business owners that I know.

[McHineguy]

As one already said - it''''s not the taxes, it''''s the spending...BTW...its the pork barrel spending, entitlement spending, foreign aid, and benefits paid to illegal aliens.


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Posted by pelosilover at 01:03 AM : Oct 31, 2008

Add to that the fact that only 60% of qualified Americans actually work. Some are disabled, some are housewives, but many just choose to not work. Others CHOOSE to work part time. Then about 20% of those that work are doing government paperwork to manage government programs (think IRS and redistribution). So the end result is that half of our country is riding on the backs of the other half. And we sit a fret about a few CEO''s who find a way to be overpaid. I think if we are going to redistribute wealth we need to redistribute work.

[McHineguy]

Redistribution of revenues is a vital part of extending opportunities to places that lack other means to upgrade and modernize their infrastructure.

Saying no to pork is like condemning all suburban and rural communities to a second class life and only giving opportunity to inner city metro areas.


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Posted by pensacola98 at 01:22 AM : Oct 31, 2008

Except for the fact that the US government is a very inneficient redistributor. By the time you add the costs of red tape and the waste when rules require you to do things that dont apply in your community, you end up with about 50% of the money being useful. add to that, the communities that end up wasting the PORK and you get about 40% useful.

Nope, I aint buying it. There are better ways to fix problems for small communities.

[McHineguy]

It''''s over. There''''s nothing Obama or McCain can do to bring the economy back. The globalization genie is out of the bottle. Look again, and you will see that the outsourcing of jobs to other countries still continues unabated. There''''s nothing that Americans do that workers in other countries cannot do at 1/10th the pay, or less.

When they opened the labor market in the name of "free trade", they are essentially asking the American worker to compete against people making a tiny fraction of their pay, working under sweatshop conditions with little or no labor laws or regulations. And they call that the "free market".

As long as this trend continues, there is no way the economy will come back. Only when the American worker''''s pay is sufficiently lowered to the point where it doesn''''t pay to outsource, then maybe the jobs will come back. Unfortunately this won''''t happen for a long, long time.


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Posted by incog-nito at 01:51 AM : Oct 31, 2008

There is one possible solution. Americans are pretty resourceful. If we were to work together we could build factories that are 10 times as efficient as those in the third world. Of course we have to work together. Also, we have to get more people working to make things, less people wasting their time at government jobs.

Or, we could just throw in the towel and redistribute what we have.

[scallywag8]

What does lipstick and pigs have in common? Palin!!!

[scallywag8]

UHHH? Do F@rts have lumps?

[standlee5]

The big difference, and it''s big, is that one plan promotes economic growth and the other contracts economy. You can''t have an economic recovery when the only growth is govt.

[incog-nito]

It''s over. There''s nothing Obama or McCain can do to bring the economy back. The globalization genie is out of the bottle. Look again, and you will see that the outsourcing of jobs to other countries still continues unabated. There''s nothing that Americans do that workers in other countries cannot do at 1/10th the pay, or less.

When they opened the labor market in the name of "free trade", they are essentially asking the American worker to compete against people making a tiny fraction of their pay, working under sweatshop conditions with little or no labor laws or regulations. And they call that the "free market".

As long as this trend continues, there is no way the economy will come back. Only when the American worker''s pay is sufficiently lowered to the point where it doesn''t pay to outsource, then maybe the jobs will come back. Unfortunately this won''t happen for a long, long time.

[sivalleyguy]

CBS_Oliver, your stats are a bit irregular. You would be more consistent in saying top 10% earned over $129,400. Then indicate top 1% earned over $ 1 million. Using an average for top 10% blurs the nearly asymptotic growth as roughly one tenth of people make nearly 10 times more.

Also, as an serial entrepreneur since age 20 I have to take issue with Joe the Plumber. He literally has no clue about basic business accounting and tax returns and should be embarrassed to stand up in public and act as though he knows of what he speaks. The McCain advance people should give him a couple hour tutorial before sending him out again.

He, and apparently few other Americans, don''t know the difference between business gross revenue, business net income, and adjusted gross income. His proposed business may have $250K gross revenue, but he''d be one lucky small business owner (or one with a really stupid CPA) to show $80K in adjusted gross income - the amount upon which he pays income taxes.

[pensacola98]

It was very popular when Ronald Reagan just fashionably called it pork and attacked those who depended on it. Let''s take a look at the grants given to public education or to law enforcement agencies. Ronald Reagan would have called that pork, too. Was it a bad thing to buy computers for schools, or vehicles and modern crime fighting infrastructure like information networking equipnent for police departments? Reagan called those things pork, too. If criminals know a small city can''t affort modern infrastructure to fight crime, then guess where all the criminals go to conduct business....you got it - small cities.

If small schools don''t have modern facilities to teach, then guess where the least competitive people entering adulthood come from....you got it - small schools.

The citizens of this nation feel it is essential to be prepared for college or working adulthood with adequate education.

The citizens also feel that secure communities offer the best places for stable homes to thrive.

Redistribution of revenues is a vital part of extending opportunities to places that lack other means to upgrade and modernize their infrastructure.

Saying no to pork is like condemning all suburban and rural communities to a second class life and only giving opportunity to inner city metro areas.

[ecphory]

For an personalized calculation of your tax rates under each candidate''s proposals, check out http://mytaxcut.us. Based on public statements by both major-party candidates, Mytaxcut.us is a non-partisan effort. In addition:

-try designing your own tax scheme: see how different tax plans affect incomes and overall tax revenues

-learn how candidates'' proposals would affect earners at different income levels

-see how income tax rates have varied in recent U.S. history