Many of the boys I coached in basketball had never been on and interstate and some will never likely be on an interstate, much less a plane. I would say they get very little benefit except necessary usage - while the wealthy use that government spending to make money and they use it alot.

 

It is not a matter of saying the poor don't get benefits, but to suggest that the wealthy do not get a good return on their investment in the infrastructure of this country is just plain silly. It is the infrastructure and the tax system that has allowed them to make money. Their/Your whomevers only complaint is that they want to make MORE or they want to KEEP MORE - Why? Don't they have enough?

 

I would venture to say that the poor benefit more from public transit than "the rich".:confused:

I often hear the statistic trotted out, "The wealthiest 1 percent pay (fill in the blank) percent of the taxes."

 

What percent do the wealthiest 1 percent earn? Is there a way to find out?

 

In the most recent tax year on record (2004) according to the IRS, the top 1% of wage earners begins around $298,000 and above.

 

http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=96981,00.html

 

To qualify for the top 1% of all wage earners in the U.S. you simply had to earn $298,001 in 2004. I know that sounds like a lot of money to somebody working at WalMart or McDonalds, but I was surprised to learn how little it took to make the top 1%. We’re not talking Bill Gates or George Spanos or Madonna or Barbara Streisand here.

 

The top 1% also paid nearly 35% of the total income tax burden for the U.S.

 

To qualify for the top 10% of all wage earners in the U.S. you had to earn above approximately $96,500 in 2004. Again, I know that sounds like a lot of money to those who don’t earn it now, but these folks pay around 68% of the total tax burden. So, 10% pays almost 70%

 

To qualify for the top 50% of all wage earners in the U.S. you had to earn just over approximately $29,100 in 2004. The top 50% pay almost 98% of the total tax burden.

 

That means that the bottom 50%, or those earning $29,000 or less pay less than 2% of all income taxes collected.

 

If we’re not already soaking the rich, I don’t know what it would take to satisfy some liberals.

 

I’ve never had a poor man offer me a job worth having for more than an afternoon, and that was when I was a teenager with no family to support.

 

I’m certainly not looking to add staff to my business when things are tight.

 

You can spin this any way you want, but if you want to shut down this economy, just raise taxes and try to soak the rich.

I would venture to say that the poor benefit more from public transit than "the rich".:confused:

There can be no legitimate doubt that the poor receive far more in return of what they contribute in terms of taxes than does a "rich" person. 100% access for 2% contribution, as opposed to 100% access for 70% contribution ($96,500 income and above) seems pretty obvious to me.

 

If we truly want to help the poor, we should be making every effort to build an environment conducive to the creation of more wealthy tax payers, not the soaking of those already there, and those on their way. We should be helping the poor man improve his learning, skills and ultimately his station in life... not telling him, "You're okay just the way you are. Vote for me, and I'll get more of what those evil rich guys have for you."

 

Where in any society has it ever made sense to punish achievement and success, and reward failure?

 

The fact that 50% of all taxpayers, (who pay less than 3% of all income taxes collected) represent 50% of all potential voters is the 800 pound gorilla in the room here. Democrats recognize this group as their ticket to power, and are willing to pander disinformation to play upon their bitterness, jealousy and envy to get votes. It is disgusting.

 

History has proven time after time that bitterness, jealousy, envy and coveting another's possessions are not virtues upon which to build a lasting society.

Talking about the 2.7 Billion that the Bush Admin gave to the oil and energy companies when Exon made profits.

 

you can source http://www.taxpayers.net and see some correspondence.

 

Being in the tax business I would have thought that you may have read this in the papers or saw it on tv.

 

Have you ever thought about how much oil companies pay in taxes???

 

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/1168.html

 

It would be absolutely disasterous if enough people who think like you ever get control of this country. Businesses and most individuals who make decent money are already taxed to death, and you are wanting them to be taxed more. Way too many people out there wanting more, more and more, who are giving less, less and less, or nothing at all...

There can be no legitimate doubt that the poor receive far more in return of what they contribute in terms of taxes than does a "rich" person. 100% access for 2% contribution, as opposed to 100% access for 70% contribution ($96,500 income and above) seems pretty obvious to me.

 

If we truly want to help the poor, we should be making every effort to build an environment conducive to the creation of more wealthy tax payers, not the soaking of those already there, and those on their way. We should be helping the poor man improve his learning, skills and ultimately his station in life... not telling him, "You're okay just the way you are. Vote for me, and I'll get more of what those evil rich guys have for you."

 

Where in any society has it ever made sense to punish achievement and success, and reward failure?

 

The fact that 50% of all taxpayers, (who pay less than 3% of all income taxes collected) represent 50% of all potential voters is the 800 pound gorilla in the room here. Democrats recognize this group as their ticket to power, and are willing to pander disinformation to play upon their bitterness, jealousy and envy to get votes. It is disgusting.

 

History has proven time after time that bitterness, jealousy, envy and coveting another's possessions are not virtues upon which to build a lasting society.

 

:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

 

Bravo. Absolutely hits the nail on the head. Great post.

Fastbreak shoots, he scores! Great post.

There can be no legitimate doubt that the poor receive far more in return of what they contribute in terms of taxes than does a "rich" person. 100% access for 2% contribution, as opposed to 100% access for 70% contribution ($96,500 income and above) seems pretty obvious to me.

 

If we truly want to help the poor, we should be making every effort to build an environment conducive to the creation of more wealthy tax payers, not the soaking of those already there, and those on their way. We should be helping the poor man improve his learning, skills and ultimately his station in life... not telling him, "You're okay just the way you are. Vote for me, and I'll get more of what those evil rich guys have for you."

 

Where in any society has it ever made sense to punish achievement and success, and reward failure?

 

 

The fact that 50% of all taxpayers, (who pay less than 3% of all income taxes collected) represent 50% of all potential voters is the 800 pound gorilla in the room here. Democrats recognize this group as their ticket to power, and are willing to pander disinformation to play upon their bitterness, jealousy and envy to get votes. It is disgusting.

 

History has proven time after time that bitterness, jealousy, envy and coveting another's possessions are not virtues upon which to build a lasting society.

 

Agreed...I was just making a point to Ace:thumb:

Agreed...I was just making a point to Ace:thumb:

I wasn't busting on you my man... if anything, I had your back... :thumb:

 

 

This site is never lacking in opinions, what we need are more clear cut facts. It's hard to argue with the IRS's own numbers.

 

 

I suspect some will try to spin them however...

what we need are more clear cut facts. It's hard to argue with the IRS's own numbers.

 

 

I suspect some will try to spin them however...

However, the analysis of these facts requires clear thinking. Unfortunately, many prefer to respond emotionally, not rationally.

There can be no legitimate doubt that the poor receive far more in return of what they contribute in terms of taxes than does a "rich" person. 100% access for 2% contribution, as opposed to 100% access for 70% contribution ($96,500 income and above) seems pretty obvious to me.

 

If we truly want to help the poor, we should be making every effort to build an environment conducive to the creation of more wealthy tax payers, not the soaking of those already there, and those on their way. We should be helping the poor man improve his learning, skills and ultimately his station in life... not telling him, "You're okay just the way you are. Vote for me, and I'll get more of what those evil rich guys have for you."

 

Where in any society has it ever made sense to punish achievement and success, and reward failure?

 

The fact that 50% of all taxpayers, (who pay less than 3% of all income taxes collected) represent 50% of all potential voters is the 800 pound gorilla in the room here. Democrats recognize this group as their ticket to power, and are willing to pander disinformation to play upon their bitterness, jealousy and envy to get votes. It is disgusting.

 

History has proven time after time that bitterness, jealousy, envy and coveting another's possessions are not virtues upon which to build a lasting society.

 

Quite possibly one of the best posts I have ever read in the P&R forum!:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

Have you ever thought about how much oil companies pay in taxes???

 

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/1168.html

 

It would be absolutely disasterous if enough people who think like you ever get control of this country. Businesses and most individuals who make decent money are already taxed to death, and you are wanting them to be taxed more. Way too many people out there wanting more, more and more, who are giving less, less and less, or nothing at all...

hey

 

Have you ever thought of how much they make. Exon made 36 Billion alone, profits up 42% and still got a 2.7 billion dollar tax break.

In the most recent tax year on record (2004) according to the IRS, the top 1% of wage earners begins around $298,000 and above.

 

http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=96981,00.html

 

To qualify for the top 1% of all wage earners in the U.S. you simply had to earn $298,001 in 2004. I know that sounds like a lot of money to somebody working at WalMart or McDonalds, but I was surprised to learn how little it took to make the top 1%. We’re not talking Bill Gates or George Spanos or Madonna or Barbara Streisand here.

 

The top 1% also paid nearly 35% of the total income tax burden for the U.S.

 

To qualify for the top 10% of all wage earners in the U.S. you had to earn above approximately $96,500 in 2004. Again, I know that sounds like a lot of money to those who don’t earn it now, but these folks pay around 68% of the total tax burden. So, 10% pays almost 70%

 

To qualify for the top 50% of all wage earners in the U.S. you had to earn just over approximately $29,100 in 2004. The top 50% pay almost 98% of the total tax burden.

 

That means that the bottom 50%, or those earning $29,000 or less pay less than 2% of all income taxes collected.

 

If we’re not already soaking the rich, I don’t know what it would take to satisfy some liberals.

 

I’ve never had a poor man offer me a job worth having for more than an afternoon, and that was when I was a teenager with no family to support.

 

I’m certainly not looking to add staff to my business when things are tight.

 

You can spin this any way you want, but if you want to shut down this economy, just raise taxes and try to soak the rich.

 

All this tells me is that wages are way out of line. If 50% of our country earn less then 29,000.00 then we are sure as heck not a strong industrial nation any longer. The top 1 % now earn 19% of total income, leaving 99% to earn the remaining 81%., as quoted on Meet the Press today. You can't expect the guy with a couple of kids and earning less then 29K, as half of the country is, to pay too much in taxes. Stop taking the 2.7 billion away from the tax base to reward Exon and all of our taxes would be less. And yes, you will see the tax structure change.

I would venture to say that the poor benefit more from public transit than "the rich".:confused:

 

Not a lot of public transit in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky.

 

When you are poor you do not necessarily reap all of the benefits.

 

And for the record, I would surmise that there is probably no one on here who makes less than 29K that is arguing for a reduction in their tax burden. The people that do this arguing (me for example) do so out of a moral obligation that I feel I have because of my Christian heritage which says to take care of the poor. And it ask for social justice.

 

I don't know of any other way to put it than to make it very personal . . . a young lady in my family became pregant at the age of 16. She chose what many would call the moral and responsible thing to do and have the child. B/C there was not family support around, she had to drop out of school to take care of the baby. (The Dad was a sloth and was not around after a couple of years). She has tried and tried to get good paying, long term jobs, but they are simply not around. She gets fired when she has to miss work because the children get sick, then she gets behind on her payments then she writes bad checks b/c she has to have heat and electricity - so she has broken the law and now she has a record which keeps her from getting hired in many good businesses. She can't afford child care so her children often stay by themselves in the evening after school. They make poor grades and get behind in school and the cycle continues. This young lady cannot just decide to have more or to do more. She does the best she can and she is going to always be poor. Chances are, b/c of their educational background now the children will probably be poor too.

 

Now, fully fund headstart, full day kindergarten, and after school care for people who are trying to make it and you may, MAY break this cycle of poverty. But when you keep giving tax break to the corporations so that they can hire people at or around miminum wage then you have created a system that is socially unjust to the poor and continues the cycle of poverty.

 

This young lady (in her 30s) does not want to be on welfare, and is embarrassed to use her WIC card. So whenever you talk about people who are lazy and like being on welfare so they don't have to work, I think of this young lady. I will gladly let 1000 people abuse the system if it insures that the children of poor get heat in the winter and food on their table.

 

It the last man in the original post is truly a christian, he will probably go and buy the other men several more meals b/c that is the way he is and he won't complain about not getting much back in taxes or tax relief.

Not a lot of public transit in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky

Not intending to keep stirring the pot Ace, but public transit is principally funded on a local, county and state level. Granted, a big chunk may be underwritten by federal funding, but again, that is up to local grant writers aggressively putting together workable grant requests.

 

Our highways and bridges a largely funded by the taxes we all pay on gasoline and diesel fuel.

 

Eastern Kentucky has benefitted from the addition of major road projects throughout the mountains. We are not as isolated as we were 50 or even 15 years ago.

 

And, unlike those living in socialist or communist countries, we are free to relocate to another area where infrastructure and opportunities are better for us and our families.

 

The Dems had control of Frankfort for 30 years prior to Fletcher. If you're unhappy with transportation infrastructure in your region, they might be a good place to start in your quest for answers.

All this tells me is that wages are way out of line. If 50% of our country earn less then 29,000.00 then we are sure as heck not a strong industrial nation any longer. The top 1 % now earn 19% of total income, leaving 99% to earn the remaining 81%., as quoted on Meet the Press today. You can't expect the guy with a couple of kids and earning less then 29K, as half of the country is, to pay too much in taxes. Stop taking the 2.7 billion away from the tax base to reward Exon and all of our taxes would be less. And yes, you will see the tax structure change.

 

So a better idea is to give that money to the government to setup more entitlement programs??? The better idea is to let Exxon reinvest that money back into their own company to grow profits and grow the number of employees. Without profits, there is no need for more employees. I am pretty sure the ROI that Exxon is going to realize on those $'s is 5X what anyone on capitol hill is going to come up with. Anytime those on capitol hill start talking about price controls, special taxes for large profits(windfall taxes), and protectionism; it is bad news for everyone in America. The surest way to ruin health care in this country is price controls on pharmaceuticals and attempts to nationalize health care. The surest way to stop the energy companies from even attempting to spend money on R&D toward alternative fuels is to overtax their profits. Corporations and individual American citizens will always do a better job of investing their profits than government, because they have a vested interest to do so. As an individual citizen or a corporation, why would you want to give more of your income tax dollars to those on the hill. Do you honestly believe that they can do a better job of deciding how to invest/spend your hard earned dollars than you??? They have proven to be some of the worst managers of money of all time(either side of the aisle).