Debunk Help Needed

[RareLubbockDem]

I just got this in response to the following article:
http://www.detnews.com/2004/specialreport/0409/26/a01-284666.htm
If you haven't read this, do. It's a great article.

Anyway, here was the response and I'm hoping some of you guys (geniuses that you are) can help me rebut this.

"The numbers are there; it's the article that's skewed. Of course a couple with 2 kids making $10,000 isn't going to get a tax cut. They don't pay any income taxes to begin with. In fact, they'll get an earned income tax credit and actually receive other people's tax money in a socialist wealth-redistribution program. The problem with this is that it creates very little incentive for these people to do something for themselves to improve their standard of living. All they have to do is vote Democrat and the good old government will continue to confiscate more people's hard-earned money to give to them. Look at the $144.4 in business tax cuts. The money small businesses save here can be re-invested and will enable them to create more jobs. Finally, look at the tax cut for the rich. What's wrong with someone that's paying $350,000 (35% of $1,000,000) getting $38,426 of their own money back? If you'll do a little research, you'll find that the so-called 'rich' actually pay a greater percentage of taxes now than they did before President Bush's tax cuts. It's funny that John Kerry claims that a doctor with three kids making $200,000/year is "rich" and should have his tax cut rescinded. John Kerry (by virtue of his wife) is worth well over $500,000,000. He easily draw $200,000/year to live on from this and only pay a 15% capital gains tax on it. I've never once heard him say he's in favor of raising that. What a hypocrite! The problem with this election is that John Kerry speaks very well, but is pathetically inadequate in action. George Bush is superb in action, but a pathetically inadequate speaker."

Thanks in advance.

[theorist]

1. One glaring error in reasoning.

I think debunking this crap is a waste of time. Whoever wrote this is so hopelessly immersed in B/C's propaganda that they'll never admit they were wrong. Take this for example:

The money small businesses save here can be re-invested and will enable them to create more jobs.

This is a myth. Any economist (not that I am one) knows that tax cuts do not ensure job growth. In fact, the evidence available suggests an opposite effect. John Kerry's plan to insure millions of Americans will help small business immediately. Ask any small business owner, and you'll find that health insurance is a major factor in hiring new people. Anyway, good luck.

[RareLubbockDem]

3. Yeah, i realize it's wasted breath on him, but

actually, it's an employee's brother that wrote this, and she's kind of on the fence, so it's really more to convince HER, than it is the writer of this. He's pretty much a brown-shirt, as is the rest of her family, and she's trying her hardest to really inform herself.

And I AM the small business owner that GWB keeps saying he's helped. Don't know what happened, but I'm not seeing it....

[jmowreader]

2. Send him this

In 1991, John Kerry finished his three-year investigation of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, an investigation which resulted in BCCI branches in eleven countries being closed by those nations' governments. Senator Kerry proved that BCCI was the world's leading source of terrorist funding and was operated in a manner similar to an organized-crime family.

In 2003, during the runup to the Iraq War, the Army located Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world and the man responsible for the wave of beheadings in Iraq, somewhere within an area of Iraq that Saddam Hussein did not control. They asked George Bush three times for permission to go in and kill al-Zarqawi; Bush refused three times. He later used Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's presence within Iraq to justify tying Saddam to al-Qaeda.

When it comes to fighting terrorists, John Kerry is superb in action and George Bush is pathetically inadequate.

[RareLubbockDem]

4. excellent... eom

[LondonReign2]

5. Fact challenged

"If you'll do a little research, you'll find that the so-called 'rich' actually pay a greater percentage of taxes now than they did before President Bush's tax cuts."

Errr, really? Sounds like he is talking out of his ass.

[RareLubbockDem]

6. that's what I thought too

so that's why i wanted to post it here to see what others thought. I can't imagine where he's coming up with that one. And his statement that the poor don't pay any income tax...... the poor may not pay the same percentage of federal income tax, but they're taxed to death in other ways, so to say that is to play with words and not be honest. Agree?

[RobertSeattle]

7. Just more Right Wing BS

I own a small business. Just because a small business person gets a tax break (depends on profitability, etc), doesn't necessarily mean they are going to go out and hire someone or buy new equipment - it's a fallacy. Heck they might just go spend it on a vacation - and that could be overseas where it does very little to help the US economy, or they could buy US Treasury Bonds with it, something that helps the Goverment but doesn't really help the economy, or maybe just stick in the bank where it doesn't do much either.

Trickle Down economics is the greatest hoax ever pushed in regards to taxes/economics in elections.

[Dark]

8. First line:

Of course a couple with 2 kids making $10,000 isn't going to get a tax cut. They don't pay any income taxes to begin with. In fact, they'll get an earned income tax credit and actually receive other people's tax money in a socialist wealth-redistribution program.

So, the person who wrote this thinks that people can live on <[b>$2500 each YEAR? Ask him if he can afford to. Ask him if the parents of those two kids can afford:
-adequate healthcare
-food
-water
-heat
-clothes
-school supplies, hygiene products, electricity

at 2500 DOLLARS A YEAR PER KID.

[RareLubbockDem]

9. that's what i need

because I honestly couldn't have told you what that credit was really worth.

[Blue_Tires]

10. yeah, and those billions in corporate tax breaks

ALWAYS are re-circulated in the economy, or used to creat more jobs, right?

WRONG...they go straight into the CEO's salary package, and end up in some Cayman Islands tax shelter...

Something tells me that Bob Lutz himself wrote this

[jamesinca]

11. A few definitions need to be looked at

The Bush definition of a small business is a start. He states it will create jobs. Wrong! Half of the small business that fall under the Bush Chenney definition are single person business. They do not have employees. Lynn Chenney is one of these business. She acted as an adviser on the Chenney's tax return and also does the speaker circuit. She is a small business by their definition and gets their tax cuts BUT she hires NO employees.

One must look at the definition of rich. Rich as defined by my version of Websters as this: Having more than enough of material possessions.

Look at the Constitution when you address this issue. There are six things that the government must do for the people of this country. They are laid out in the preamble and the rest of the Constitution is merely procedural. Those six things are 1)To form a more perfect Union. 2) Provide for the common defense 3) Promote the general welfare. 4)Ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. 5) Equal justice under the law. 6)Domestic tranquility. Point number 3 I think says it all. There is a Constitutional obligation to help out your fellow American.

Kerry addressed the tax cuts to the rich during the debate just last week. He says that people like him and Bush do not need the tax cuts and he is in favor of repealing those tax cuts which by the way will raise the Kerry percentage of tax money paid. The poor and middle class are the consumer classes because they get money and they spend it. The rich by definition are already making ends meet so they invest it when they get money. They do not purchase any more and drive the economy. The person making the argument is talking the classic supply side argument. Reagan showed us for 12 years and Bush showed us for 4 years and little Bush is showing us for another 4 years that it does not work.

The great depression was overcome and WWII was financed on the backs of the rich. FDR raised the personal income tax level on the rich to 91%. Prior to this the rate had been driven down to 16% by the Republicans and it financially broke this county. Tell this person to do a little research on the tax trends in this country.

The argument about the rich paying more now than before Bush is BS. The wealthy have gotten a break on their estate taxes and the dividends that are paid on profit. The poor and middle class do not make enough on dividends or have estates big enough to have qualified for the taxes anyway. The dividends and profit is not something they had to work for, it is money sitting in the back collecting interest. It is not hard earned money as this individual seems to believe it is. Most of the things that the middle class own are called 401K's. They are tax exempt anyway so taking away a dividend tax did not help these people one bit.

You do not pay the "payroll taxes" after roughly $87,000. That is about a 7% drop in taxes. Bill Gates pays payroll taxes on January 1st only. Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney, pays these taxes till about January 5th. Bill Gates who is worth $54 billion pays a lower percentage of taxes because of this than I do. I sure hope Bill can make ends meet, and is using that immediate reduction in his taxes for good. The federal median income is $40,000. At $50,00 less than 30% of the population makes more money than you. Look at it, $40,000 is a full time job that pays $19.23 per hour. 40 hours per week, 52 weeks a year is 2080 hours per year.

Without getting into an economical discussion or citing sources that is how I believe it works and I hope it can lay a ground work for your argument.

[RareLubbockDem]

13. holy cow...

that's an awesome response. Thanks a lot!

[phylny]

12. On a more humanistic note, addressing the notion

that there's no "incentive" for people to work harder, the entire premise is ridiculous. I work with poor families. It's not fun being poor. It's not fun having improper clothes for your kids when it gets cold, or feeding them spaghetti for breakfast because that's all you have. It's not fun living two families to a three room "apartment" (eight families to a house, four families sharing a bathroom) where all your kids have to sleep on the floor by your bed, and all your clothes are stacked up on the wall because you have no closets in your "apartment."

Most poor people I work with are seasonal farm workers. They don't make any money, yet they all work harder than I do.

My husband and I are fairly well off. We got educated, we got pretty good jobs, we worked our butts off, and husband was lucky enough not to be laid off over the 23 years he's worked for a big company - and they've had some massive layoffs. Some people might call us well-to-do, but we're not in the tax bracket discussed above. However, I have nothing against giving those who are struggling some real tax relief, and taxing those who can absorb it. I didn't need the $600 we got from President Bush. Big f'n deal. Give the money to people who would benefit from it.

[RareLubbockDem]

14. you speak my mind

almost exactly. Sounds like we're about the same economically, yet we do work with those that aren't, and do understand there's a whole world out there. I wish more people would read the book Nickeled and Dimed (i think that's it....) but it probably wouldn't make a bit of difference to the guy that I'm talking to.

[RebelOne]

15. This person must have been listening to Sean Insannity

on the radio yesterday because he was spewing the same crap. All I know is that I didn't receive any significant reduction in taxes. The only difference was that in April I only had to pay $10 less in tax than the year before.

[RareLubbockDem]

17. well if ever there were a person

that would get his news from that kinda source, it would be him. He's known for fowarding things to her from newsmax and drudge as if it's gospel.

[Redleg]

16. Everyone knows business owners create new jobs when they have

extra dollars from their big ass tax cuts. Wrong- businesses hire new workers when demand for goods and services exceeds their capacity to meet demand. Jeebus- these freepers are an ignorant sort, aren't they?