Comments on: CBS Poll: McCain Surges To National Lead

On Democratic Side, Clinton Maintains Double-Digit Lead Over Obama

[jon2012-2009]

Posted by guysdigdirt at 03:45 PM : Jan 15, 2008

The Social Security program is already projected to run into insolvency. The tax cuts on the scale GWB has given away would take funds away from it, funds that fall more on lower-income workers to maintain with their payroll taxes. So this is important to me and probably to all others who are making less than $100,000 a year.

[guysdigdirt]

GWB is circumventing the system to engineer a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich at the risk of running this country into the ground.
Posted by jon2012

Are you really that fricking stupid? What Kool-aid have you been drinking?

[jon2012-2009]

Try and understand this. You don''''t get a refund unless you pay money in. You want a big refund? Have twice as much withheld from your pay.

Posted by mbcsmith at 03:15 PM : Jan 15, 2008

That''s the whole idea of a regressive tax table, buddy. You make more, your tax rate rises. I didn''t put it there.

The tax cuts erode the regressive nature of the income tax rates. If you think this is burdensome to a group of people, let''s go to a flat tax rate them. Maybe it will be a more honest system and in that system, tax cuts will be equitable.

BTW where are your so-called economists trumpeting the benefits of the massive tax cuts that GWB gave to the wealthy?

[jon2012-2009]

alanrobisch2 your comment stating that Bush is the worst president in history is not only incorrect, it is simply defies logic. Where were you during the Carter years? Do you remember gas lines 5 miles long, an economy on the brink of complete collapse? How about the pinko Carter sitting idly by while American hostages were held for how many hundred days???? All it took to have them released was to elect the man... Ronald Reagan.
Posted by Crusherking at 01:11 PM : Jan 15, 2008

You are simplistic by drawing a causal connection between the release of the hostages and the election of Reagan. That was just Iran trying to manipulate politics here. Whoever won (other than Carter, and maybe, even if it was Carter himself) would have been the beneficiary of this declaration of truce.

The gas lines were a function of disruption and availability of supplies. We have something similar happening in California and the Northeast when blackouts caused hardships. In California, there was evidence of illegal manipulation by Enron, whose CEO was GWB''s buddy. Of course, it wasn''t only Enron that went bust and wiped out the value in tens of thousands of retirement savings.

But, seriously, Carter''s deficiencies pale in comparison to the misdeeds of GWB. Impeachment is the only response I can think of that will correct the scales of justice and then it will cover only some of the most egregious examples of his crimes.

[mbcsmith]

The $300 was on $72,000 income. Here''''s more data. The top 1% got refund of $27,762; those making a million at least got $89,509. I don''''t know about you but the tax rates are the way they are--regressive, so the more income, the higher the tax rate--because those who are Posted by jon2012 at 02:23 PM : Jan 15, 2008

Try and understand this. You don''t get a refund unless you pay money in. You want a big refund? Have twice as much withheld from your pay.

Fact is, EVERY tax bracket was reduced. An additional 40 million workers at the low end of the scale paid NO INCOME TAX under the Bush tax cuts. Standard deductions increased for all but the wealthy. Do some research before you make yourself look ignorant.

[jon2012-2009]

Posted by mbcsmith at 01:11 PM : Jan 15, 2008

Who are these mainstream economists saying the tax cuts were beneficial (other than to the rich)? They don''t happen to be "experts" with ties to the GOP, do they? Economy is a science so give me someone who is nonpartisan.

The $300 was on $72,000 income. Here''s more data. The top 1% got refund of $27,762; those making a million at least got $89,509. I don''t know about you but the tax rates are the way they are--regressive, so the more income, the higher the tax rate--because those who are fortunate to make so much have more at stake and more interest in protecting a system that has allowed them to accumulate wealth.

If we want a flat tax rate, let''s have one. But that''s not the issue here. GWB is circumventing the system to engineer a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich at the risk of running this country into the ground.

[mbcsmith]

Posted by jon2012 at 12:49 PM : Jan 15, 2008

U.S. Treasury tax revenues are at their highest in history. Every economist has credited the tax cuts for easing the 2000-2001 recession and boosting the economy after the most devastating attack on U.S. soil ever.
Most economists believe the recission of the tax cuts ( increasing taxes) would do great harm to the economy

You can''t get a $27,000 refund by paying in $1,000.

Every LIB candidate has already promised to raise your taxes. Some are promoting an increase in payroll taxes. There goes the rest of your refund!

[crusherking]

alanrobisch2 your comment stating that Bush is the worst president in history is not only incorrect, it is simply defies logic. Where were you during the Carter years? Do you remember gas lines 5 miles long, an economy on the brink of complete collapse? How about the pinko Carter sitting idly by while American hostages were held for how many hundred days???? All it took to have them released was to elect the man... Ronald Reagan. While I''ll admit Bush is not in the top 10 list, he certainly ranks well above Carter, Warren Harding, Pierce and Buchanan. Simply throwing out unfounded statements to insult is childish and not at all responsible or intelligent. Research the subject please.

[hillaryin08]

Another gift from the left coast

A new, highly drug-resistant strain of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, has moved outside hospitals and is now spreading among gay men, researchers reported Monday.

Some of the hardest hit areas are San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report.

Click here to read the San Francisco Chronicle story.

In regards to San Francisco, the study found sexually active gay men are 13 times more likely to be infected than the general population.

"We probably had it here first, and now it is spreading elsewhere," said Binh An Diep, a researcher at San Francisco General Hospital and lead author of the report, in a news release. "This is a national problem, and San Francisco is at the epicenter."

Although researchers have stopped short of declaring this form of staph a sexually transmitted disease, the infections are found where skin-to-skin contact occurs during sexual activity.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), MRSA is responsible for about 19,000 deaths annually in America %u2014 most of which occur in the hospital.

The findings appear online in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

Thanks Nancy Pelosi

[jon2012-2009]

Lets see hillary wants to expand free health insurance that will cost us only 110 billion dollars a year and she wants to raise our taxes by cancelling reductions made by bush
Posted by alanrobisch2 at 09:34 PM : Jan 14, 2008

Rescinding the tax cuts would be a great idea. Do I really care about the $300 tax refund I received the first year of the tax cuts? Not when others got $27,500. I doubt you got this much either or even close.

The idea that the tax cuts would stimulate the economy to pay for themselves in higher tax revenues has long gone out of fashion. They are just a plain grab and transfer of wealth to the rich.

Why don''t we see the tax cuts applied to payroll taxes instead, which are also taxes on income? This type of tax cuts would benefit those in lower-income brackets more since the rich are sheltered pretty much from this tax.