I voted for Obama in 2008 and Johnson in 2012. I thought Obama was a decent president considering what has replaced him, but we all would have been better off had Romney won in 2012. Romney, McCain, and Obama were all honorable men. We didn't know how good we had it. Vance might be a bigger scumbag than Trump (if that's even possible) and the forces driving the right (the Stephen Millers and Steve Bannons) are pure evil.

Voted Gore - Kerry - Obama - Obama - Hilary - Biden - Harris

I'm as pure as the driven snow

4 minutes ago, VanHammersly said:

Voted Gore - Kerry - Obama - Obama - Hilary - Biden - Harris

I'm as pure as the driven snow

maybe after the huskies roll through.

3 minutes ago, Alpha_TATEr said:

maybe after the huskies roll through.

"Van was right about everything"

Many are saying it

3 hours ago, VanHammersly said:

Voted Gore - Kerry - Obama - Obama - Hilary - Biden - Harris

I'm as pure as the driven snow

Yes you are one of the actual lefties in here these days. There are a few more.

JSDarkstar, Van, and Moss are the only posters I'm pretty confident are vote blue no matter who.

Maybe Hunt but it's hard to tell given he mostly seems to what to ish-post. Which I fully respect for the record.

After that there's a few that seem to lean left but probably would vote for a Republican if they weren't bat-ish insane.

3 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

Yes you are one of the actual lefties in here these days. There are a few more.

I'm not even that left. No one in that lineup is particularly far left. Never voted for Bernie or Nader or anything. Of course, you could look at it exponentially since I voted for each one of the those candidates dozens of times at minimum in each election, so maybe that compounds their ideology.

7 minutes ago, VanHammersly said:

I'm not even that left. No one in that lineup is particularly far left. Never voted for Bernie or Nader or anything. Of course, you could look at exponentially since I voted for each one of the those candidates dozens of times at minimum in each election, so maybe that compounds their ideology.

Yeah you aren’t far left but you are consistently solidly left of center imho.

I went Lenin, Stalin, Malenkov, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev

28 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

JSDarkstar, Van, and Moss are the only posters I'm pretty confident are vote blue no matter who.

Maybe Hunt but it's hard to tell given he mostly seems to what to ish-post. Which I fully respect for the record.

After that there's a few that seem to lean left but probably would vote for a Republican if they weren't bat-ish insane.

I find my politics shifting a little more left because not only have we gone horrifyingly far right (so much so that I don't even recognize the country anymore), there's just too much of a divide between the 1% and the rest of us. With how much money my wife and I make we should be considered rich.Far from it because of how insanely expensive everything is. The median household income in 83k, and the average is 120k. I don't know how anyone can raise a family on that, and the people making less than that? I shudder to think.

16 minutes ago, Gannan said:

I find my politics shifting a little more left because not only have we gone horrifyingly far right (so much so that I don't even recognize the country anymore), there's just too much of a divide between the 1% and the rest of us. With how much money my wife and I make we should be considered rich.Far from it because of how insanely expensive everything is. The median household income in 83k, and the average is 120k. I don't know how anyone can raise a family on that, and the people making less than that? I shudder to think.

Most people making the median are living in crappy areas with bad schools and low costs of living to survive.

Like West Virginia.

30 minutes ago, Gannan said:

I find my politics shifting a little more left because not only have we gone horrifyingly far right (so much so that I don't even recognize the country anymore), there's just too much of a divide between the 1% and the rest of us. With how much money my wife and I make we should be considered rich.Far from it because of how insanely expensive everything is. The median household income in 83k, and the average is 120k. I don't know how anyone can raise a family on that, and the people making less than that? I shudder to think.

We’re taking trickle down economics back to a pre Great Depression tax structure because 40% of the country slept through history and civics class or just can’t read at all.

2 hours ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

JSDarkstar, Van, and Moss are the only posters I'm pretty confident are vote blue no matter who.

Maybe Hunt but it's hard to tell given he mostly seems to what to ish-post. Which I fully respect for the record.

After that there's a few that seem to lean left but probably would vote for a Republican if they weren't bat-ish insane.

That’s about how I see it as well

1 hour ago, MidMoFo said:

We’re taking trickle down economics back to a pre Great Depression tax structure because 40% of the country slept through history and civics class or just can’t read at all.

Yeah its insane. Billionaires tyinp up all of their capitol in stocks and just borrowing against them to avoid paying taxes while the rest of us try to fund hte federal government is absurd

8 hours ago, Gannan said:

Yeah it’s insane. Billionaires tyinp up all of their capitol in stocks and just borrowing against them to avoid paying taxes while the rest of us try to fund hte federal government is absurd

This lie about the top 1% and top 10% not paying income taxes will never die despite being laughably false. We have the most progressive income tax system in the developed world based on income taxes paid primarily because half the country pays nothing. The top 10% pay roughly 72% of all income taxes; the bottom 50% pay 3%.

14 hours ago, VanHammersly said:

Voted Gore - Kerry - Obama - Obama - Hilary - Biden - Harris

I'm as pure as the driven snow

Didn’t vote in 2000. Bush, McCain, Romney, Johnson, Jorgensen, Harris.

8 hours ago, Gannan said:

Yeah its insane. Billionaires tyinp up all of their capitol in stocks and just borrowing against them to avoid paying taxes while the rest of us try to fund hte federal government is absurd

5 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

This lie about the top 1% and top 10% not paying income taxes will never die despite being laughably false. We have the most progressive income tax system in the developed world based on income taxes paid primarily because half the country pays nothing. The top 10% pay roughly 72% of all income taxes; the bottom 50% pay 3%.

The income tax is progressive meaning the rates go up as the tax bracket goes up.

The Social Security Tax framework is regressive. Current max earnings subject to payroll tax is $184,500. Most earners are subjected to the tax, and its significant enough. Exceed the cap though, and none of your income over the cap is subject to that tax.

The question isn't what the rates are but rather what actually gets paid by a percentage AND we need to look broadly at all types of compensation and not solely on a narrow definition of "income". I'm 100% against a wealth tax but a reform of how the concept of income is defined, taxed, and managed is necessary.

A sizable portion of the top 1% are not paying income tax. Bezos' "salary" is like $81k. If they sell under long term capital gains they're going to pay just south of 20% on that overall (LTCG is also progressive with a top tax of 20% for sales over like $600k).

The top 10% include a LOT of salaried employees. There is a big difference between saying top 10% and top 1%, and a big difference between top 1% and top 0.1%.

The gap here is a fuzzy/muddy mix of perception vs reality. When we're talking about the top n% we're usually looking at it by net worth, not taxable income. The closer to the top you get the more net worth is tied up in unrealized gains.

Relative to taxable income, the top 0.1% pay 33% or so. Relative to their net worth, including unrealized capital gains, it's far far less.

Which is the right number? Well, I suppose it depends on the argument you're trying to make 🤣

But let's even take an example out of the top 10%. Let's say a household makes $450k. Their effective tax rate with a standard deduction is around 18%. But they've got a primary home, maybe a rental property, maxing out 401ks, roll over IRAs, and a brokerage account, and their net worth grows on average an additional say $200k/year in the 2020s. Should they be taxed based on $650k of income?

That's what taxing unrealized gains would mean. You could adjust that threshold to target "ultra rich", but the effect is largely the same. I'm not saying we should or shouldn't, but that's what would be considered there - you're taxing something illiquid.

5 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

A sizable portion of the top 1% are not paying income tax. Bezos' "salary" is like $81k. If they sell under long term capital gains they're going to pay just south of 20% on that overall (LTCG is also progressive with a top tax of 20% for sales over like $600k).

The top 10% include a LOT of salaried employees. There is a big difference between saying top 10% and top 1%, and a big difference between top 1% and top 0.1%.

The gap here is a fuzzy/muddy mix of perception vs reality. When we're talking about the top n% we're usually looking at it by net worth, not taxable income. The closer to the top you get the more net worth is tied up in unrealized gains.

Relative to taxable income, the top 0.1% pay 33% or so. Relative to their net worth, including unrealized capital gains, it's far far less.

Which is the right number? Well, I suppose it depends on the argument you're trying to make 🤣

But let's even take an example out of the top 10%. Let's say a household makes $450k. Their effective tax rate with a standard deduction is around 18%. But they've got a primary home, maybe a rental property, maxing out 401ks, roll over IRAs, and a brokerage account, and their net worth grows on average an additional say $200k/year in the 2020s. Should they be taxed based on $650k of income?

That's what taxing unrealized gains would mean. You could adjust that threshold to target "ultra rich", but the effect is largely the same. I'm not saying we should or shouldn't, but that's what would be considered there - you're taxing something illiquid.

Taxing unrealized gains is a total nightmare. Are you going to pay people back when the values go the other way? What do you do with the value of stock in a non listed company where there effectively is no market to buy/sell shares? Etc. There are many many problems with this approach.

Probably better to look at how things like stocks given as compensation or stock options are taxed. All types of benefits and compensation.

1 minute ago, sameaglesfan said:

Do you believe in Bigfoot and aliens too? Look, I don't know how else to break it to you, but you're actually retarded, Sam.

If you losers have evidence, present it in court. But to date, you've got F all and if you have to keep quoting Giuliani on being long on theories but short on actual evidence, that should be a clue that your fantasies don't square with reality.

1 hour ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

but that's what would be considered there - you're taxing something illiquid.

Which would be difficult and likely to end up as a disaster with a ton of unintended consequences. Even if it held up legally (the closest analog I can come up with is the increases to the taxable value of a home for property tax hikes) the net result ends up being a massive deterrent to large scale investments in the market. We should be encouraging more retail participation in markets, not less. If the concern is that high NW individuals are reducing income and borrowing against assets as a tax avoidance strategy, then we should focus on that, not unrealized gains.

Sorry - I forgot the NJ voter fraud was a "software glitch." Nothing to see here.

19 minutes ago, sameaglesfan said:

Sorry - I forgot the NJ voter fraud was a "software glitch." Nothing to see here.

Sorry, I forgot that you still don't understand how the legal process works. You bumbling idiots control all three branches of government, if this fraud meets the legal standard, convictions should be a slam dunk, right?