"We will not have an all-volunteer army" Bush, Oct

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Postby Dim » Tue Oct 19, 2004 7:16 pm

Oh, BTW, you think maybe it costs money to fight a war on terrorism? Maybe when an emergency shows up, the old budget plans are pushed aside . . ?


Bush pushed through his tax cut which accounts for 60% of the deficit BEFORE 9/11 - but after the dot-com bubble burst causing a massive decline in government revenue.

Personally, I don't care as much about "budget deficit" as I do that the Johns are PROUDLY promising to steal more of my paycheck if they are put into power.


I guess this means that you earn more than $200,000 a year - congratulations!
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Postby SoloPilot » Tue Oct 19, 2004 7:27 pm

No, I don't but even if Kerry boosted taxes ONLY on those earning over $200K, it would still affect me -- the outfit I'm with is an S Corp, all of the money counts against the owner (I take home more than he does), and if his taxes go up while total income remains the same, the money will come from my next expected pay raise. It will also mean that the current expansion of the outfit would slow or even be put on hold for a while.

Remember what a tax is. It is money taken by threat -- pay up or people with guns will come and take it from you.

I can't remember a single Democrat who raised taxes only on the "rich," and with all of the programs that Kerry promises, I can't believe that he doesn't have me firmly in his sights.
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Postby Penta » Tue Oct 19, 2004 8:29 pm

Remember what a tax is. It is money taken by threat -- pay up or people with guns will come and take it from you.


Hell, I hadn't realised quite how violent a society it had become in the US.
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Postby SoloPilot » Tue Oct 19, 2004 8:37 pm

Penta:

Try not paying your taxes in Spain. Let us know what happens.

ALL taxation is done by threat.
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Postby Tarkan » Tue Oct 19, 2004 8:52 pm

SoloPilot wrote:No, I don't but even if Kerry boosted taxes ONLY on those earning over $200K, it would still affect me -- the outfit I'm with is an S Corp, all of the money counts against the owner (I take home more than he does), and if his taxes go up while total income remains the same, the money will come from my next expected pay raise.


Actually, this isn't true Solo. The net income from the corp counts as taxable income for the shareholders, not the gross income. So, lets say the corp pulls in $250,000 a year. $100,000 goes to you, $50,000 goes to operational expenses like fuel & maintenance, and the remaining $50,000 goes to the principal shareholders (lets say it's one person, your boss).

Your boss would have to pay taxes on $50,000 not $250,000. Any increase in the overall tax rate for people making over $200,000 would not affect him at all, unless he has other revenue streams that put him over the $200,000 mark.

In any event, people are living in a fantasy land if they think Kerry, if elected, is only going to raise taxes on people making $200,000 or more. Kerry definitely belongs to the "it's not your money, the government is only letting you borrow it" school of thought. Unless we are talking about his money, of course, which he shelters offshore to diminish his liability.
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Postby Texas Carnie Roadshow » Tue Oct 19, 2004 9:41 pm

Dim wrote:
Personally, I don't care as much about "budget deficit"...


I guess this means that you earn more than $200,000 a year - congratulations!


Actually, I'm not to concerned with the deficit either, and I only make a little over 20,000 a year.
I never really studied economics.
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Postby Penta » Tue Oct 19, 2004 9:55 pm

SoloPilot wrote:Try not paying your taxes in Spain. Let us know what happens.


Actually, I'm the only person I know who pays up, fully, in Spain. Everyone else seems to use every trick in the book to get out of it. And nobody I know feels in the least threatened by the tax authorities there. Funnily enough, I believe in paying taxes. I even pay extra tax in the UK on my Spanish income.

The 'revolutionary tax' to ETA, though, in the Basque country, is a different matter altogether.

It was the picture of someone coming round with a gun from the Inland Revenue, here in the UK, that made me laugh.
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Postby SoloPilot » Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:02 pm

Penta:

Try paying NO taxes. See what happens. The Inland Revenue will only be your first visitors. Keep refusing to pay. Then refuse to go to court. Refuse to go to jail. At SOME point, you will run across the people with the guns who will persuade you to adjust your attitude.


Tarkan:

In an S Corp, the entire income counts against the owner, the "wall" between owner and company is actually just a line drawn on the ground. This way they avoid double taxation, but are in Kerry's sights.
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Postby Penta » Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:12 pm

Try paying NO taxes. See what happens. The Inland Revenue will only be your first visitors. Keep refusing to pay. Then refuse to go to court. Refuse to go to jail. At SOME point, you will run across the people with the guns who will persuade you to adjust your attitude.


I'm afraid you're wrong. It is inconceivable that I would be taken to court at gunpoint in this country for refusing to pay taxes. Manhandle, yes, but threaten me with guns, no.

Perhaps you don't know as much about the world as you think.
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Postby SoloPilot » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:29 am

Refuse to go to court. Fight against them, don't let them take you.

You tell me, will they eventually give up and go home? If not, then at some point things will escalate to the threat (or use) of deadly force.

This is the government's ultimate power, and the one which backs up taxation.
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Postby Kurt » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:34 am

Personally I think that the Liberals are more likely to re-instate the draft.

Here it is tauted among the likes of Charles Rangle (my congressman...sorry about that) as a way to "Equality".

But luckily the general populace hates it, and the military hates it (who wants to train people who don't wanna be there?) so hopefully it will not pass no matter which lying bastard gets elected.

Except Badnarik.
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Solopilot

Postby Renard » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:34 am

Just an aside: 43 posts in one day. That's pretty prolific.
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Postby SRR » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:37 am

Just an aside: 43 posts in one day. That's pretty prolific.


Wow Renard, you're right. (No, not phrased -that- way: as in "Wow. Renard - you're right!)

That may be a record on the new BFC. Of course, on the old BFC, it was old hat for certain posters.
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Postby Kurt » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:40 am

Yah, the number of Mach posts used to cause the "post count " program to crash on the old board and register at "only" 500.
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Postby Penta » Wed Oct 20, 2004 10:05 am

SoloPilot wrote:Refuse to go to court. Fight against them, don't let them take you.

You tell me, will they eventually give up and go home? If not, then at some point things will escalate to the threat (or use) of deadly force.

This is the government's ultimate power, and the one which backs up taxation.


I'm sorry, everyone, to harp on about this completely off-topic side argument here, but it does demonstrate SP's complete lack of understanding of how some societies work, without the need for recourse to guns and 'deadly force'.

If the police were sent to get me to court (unlikely in itself, I think: it would have to have become a major stand-off), they might, conceivably, belabour me with truncheons ('extendable batons' as they're now so politely called) or even use pepper spray, if I was resisting exceptionally fiercely, and then manhandle me into a car or van. Guns would never come into it.

If the police so much as turned up at my house with any firearms, to arrest me for a tax offence, there would be a huge national outcry, leaders and comment pieces in the newspapers, questions in Parliament, demands for the Home Secretary's resignation, and more.

In our democracy, we are governed -- and policed -- by consent.

The police would not and could not threaten, let alone use, 'deadly force' in such circumstances. And long may that remain the case.

If SoloPilot thinks a society in which the threat of deadly force is routine in civil matters is one to be proud of, that's up to him. I emphatically don't.
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