Would you prefer to see Obama create a major jobs program

[MadHound]

Would you rather see the President and Congress create a WPA style jobs program instead of trying to extend the Bush tax cuts for any class? Yes, no, and how big.

It is stated that such tax cut would cost us 3-4 trillion dollars, and it has been shown that tax cuts are the least effective form of economic stimulus, while job creation programs are one of the most effective form of stimulus.

[lunatica]

1. Why does it have to be either or. How about doing both

Take the fucking money that would be otherwise handed out to the rich for no benefit and actually create the jobs that tax giveaway was supposed to with that failed trickle down economics. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

[bluethruandthru]

20. That's the right answer!!! n/t

[prolesunited]

38. My vote

[blondeatlast]

39. I+1. Write in lunatica's idea. nt

[Lost4words]

2. while ending the phony wars! would be nice as well

[MadHound]

4. Yeah, we really do need to end the wars.

Otherwise we're going to end our empire Soviet style, spending ever decreasing resources on war and ruin.

[fasttense]

3. We unemployed deserve at least as much help as the bankster.

But it will never happen. President Obama is afraid of being identified as an FDR in the media. A Raygun, that's ok, but an FDR scares away the warlords of America, like Monsanto, Exxon, Wal-Mart, GE. Without the warlord's bankrolls, politicians can't get re-elected. The Dancing Supremes made sure of that.

[TBF]

5. Large-scale jobs program, but we've got to let those $250K+ tax

cuts expire to fund it.

[leveymg]

6. More a new GI Bill For All rather than another WPA - emphasize education, small biz loans

to help the middle-class long-term rather than short-term ditch-digging and monument building jobs. The concept of "shovel-ready" projects really benefits the big construction conglomerates.

[ixion]

7. Yep. Jobs program with a 1 trillion dollar budget, paid for by the F.I.R.E vertical

in whole.

[dkf]

8. How hard is it to vote for someone else paying for everything?

Maybe we should take a vote on exempting ourselves from taxes and taxing all assets away over a couple million dollars. I bet that would fly too.

[leveymg]

9. No danger the middle-class will be exempted from paying most of the taxes - unless we're no longer

middle-class.

[dkf]

11. My point is that if Americans could vote to have someone else pay for everything they would.

Not that there is a chance that could happen. People generally don't want to pay taxes. They just want all the benefits. This makes a poll like this very easy as it just says "Take it from the other guy!"

[leveymg]

12. You're right - not a chance in hell that we'll get a truly progressive tax structure - look who

Chairs that Committee:

[laughingliberal]

13. Well, why not? Those at the top have been voting to let the workers carry the burden for 30 years

while they hoarded the wealth. What do you thing lowering taxes at the top, raising the payroll tax to fund SS and now trying to cut SS benefits is? That is the top avoiding paying their share since Reagan and funding the deficit spending with our FICA taxes and now trying to avoid paying it back.

Those at the top have been getting all the benefits without the responsibility. And, yes, that's exactly what they've been voting for and buying legislators to vote for.

Yes, it is time the people who benefited most participate and do their part. Past time, actually.

[dkf]

14. Yet when you don't pay anything benefits requested have no ceiling.

How do you judge reasonableness in that case?

The government becomes the provider, not the safety net. Dependence becomes the norm, not the exception.

[laughingliberal]

15. Yes, that's what they've done, alright.

We now have corporations with unlimited access to our labor and resources who pay no taxes. And the top 2% are still whining while their tax rate is less than 1/2 what it was in 1980. The wealth at the top has totally been provided by our payroll taxes and the government they depend on to steal it from us so they can hoard all the money. You're right, there will be no end to their demands.

[dkf]

16. I agree the payroll tax increase was a scam.

And at the time I first started getting upset I didn't realize how the tiers significantly lopped off payouts of social security for middle income contributors.

The argument that payments needed to be increased to keep SS from becoming insolvent was a joke because all it needed to do was provide enough income for payouts. The demographic time bomb is there regardless of the supposed overfunding and it is unsustainable with or without those surplus payments ever happening.

[dkf]

19. Did you realize that prior to Reagan you could deduct any amount you put in retirement funds?

The loopholes were outrageous and nobody paid the top rate. We complain that the rich save and don't consume. Just imagine if that savings were unlimited amounts in non taxable accounts? What does taxable income look like then? They could also deduct all interest on any loan.

[laughingliberal]

23. I know that before Reagan wages were going up and the middle class was growing.

Yes, no one ever paid the top rate but, in order to avoid it, they were required to invest or donate. Now, we just hand it to them. And the right continues to demonize the poor as 'welfare queens.'

The money they were investing in retirement funds was, likely, making some money that was further spurring investment benefiting the country as a whole. Now, we see all the tax cuts to the top was invested in foreign markets. Not some, not most...ALL of it.

BTW, prior to Bush I, we could all deduct interest on loans and credit cards. Doing away with that was part of his hit on the middle class. Once they did away with that, financial institutes were then allowed to begin engaging in loan shark rates which is part of where the wealth went. As wages were driven down and people had to begin to depend on credit to make up the shortfalls, financial institutions were free to rape the workers and the middle.

It's way past time those welfare queens in the top 1-2% started paying their way. Way past time.

[dkf]

24. Investing is investing. They don't differentiate if it goes to foreign or domestic investments.

That also means dividends, interest, and capital gains in the retirement accounts escaped taxes for years and years and years.

[laughingliberal]

25. Sorry, there is a difference in foreign investment and domestic.

ALL the money we gave the top in the Bush tax cut went overseas.

It's pretty simple if you just look at the history. Before we cut taxes on the top (starting in the 80's) wages were going up and the middle class was growing. After we started cutting taxes on the top, the decline of the rest of us (bottom 98%) has been unrelenting. It is way past time to make the welfare queens at the top participate. Way past time.

They invest in ways that insures the money is spent and creates jobs in OUR country or they pay for the social programs we need to make sure our people are housed and fed. There is no free lunch and they've eaten free for 30 years.

[dkf]

30. There are no difference in escaping income taxes in retirement plans based on where there funds were

Invested. Are you arguing that there should be? I'm not sure his you would even account for that. Conglomerations are all over the place now.

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. The ONLY people who "don't pay anything" are those at the top.

unless your income is wholly government provided, such as full disability SSI - in which case the taxes they pay are merely re-circulated from their government provided income.

Anyone who works, pays taxes. Income taxes, sales taxes, vehicle taxes, property taxes - and the ONLY ones who escape taxation are those who can buy the legislators who can write the laws in their favor.

I'm not sure I get your point.

[dkf]

26. Don't pay anything in federal taxes I mean.

It's easy to want more from the federal government if you yourself don't contribute federal income taxes. Why wouldn't you vote for any benefit in that case.

Okay I'll try to elaborate on this. Let's say you go to a car dealership and you see before you a $50,000 car a $30,000 car, and a $12,000 used car. If you could vote for some rich person to get you any of these cars, which would you pick?

Then let's say you had to pay for the car yourself. Would you pick the same car or would you be more judicious in how you spend your own money?

My point is it is a lot easier to want more when you don't have to pay for it and people who pay no federal income taxes aren't paying for it.

[laughingliberal]

28. "It's easy to want more from the federal government if you yourself don't ...

contribute federal income taxes. Why wouldn't you vote for any benefit in that case. "

Yep. That's precisely what those at the top have been doing for 30 years. Voting for those who lower their taxes and keep supporting the corporate welfare culture while we pay for what's needed for the people of the country.

Time for them to get off the dole and pay up.

[MadHound]

22. Actually there is a ceiling on this,

At least one that I had in mind. Since the full price of all the Bush tax cuts comes in at 3-4 trillion, if we extend them, I'm figuring a trillion on a jobs creation program, and the rest is applied towards our debt.

[AnArmyVeteran]

35. Please start using my expression "The Deadbeat Rich" from now on.

I've been using it for years because I've been sick of the rich making fortunes off of the backs of the poor and middle class. The rich have ALL the benefits of living in this country and they aren't contributing to it at all. They are deadbeats. Even an illegal migrant farm worker who picks vegetables for a living produces more for society in one day than all the white collared freeloaders on Wall Street do in their lifetimes. And the rich don't even fight and die in wars because they dont need to join the military just so they can learn a trade to feed their families.

I am sick of democratic leaders never saying anything about the deadbeat rich and how they are like parasites in our country. They produce nothing. The poor and middle class are the ones who build out roads, our bridges, our schools and everything else in this country. Even slaves built most of the goddamned White House even though they had zero rights and zero wealth.

The stupid and profoundly ignorant tea baggers want to take their country back, but from whom? Do they think the poor own this country? Why do they mindlessly protect and defend the top 2% of the people and attack those who own nothing but the shirts on their backs? How can those on the right be so deluded? And why are democratic leaders basically supporting them by not resoundingly condemning and rejecting everything they say?

[laughingliberal]

36. +1,000,000 nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

27. Wealth is so heavily concentrated, there's only one place to get it.

The disadvantage of having all the wealth is that all the problems become yours.

[laughingliberal]

10. That would actually be pretty fair.

Looking at statistics, we see the working class' wages have gone up around 16% over the last 3 decades while income at the top has gone up 281%.

I see nothing wrong with having those who benefited from the policies that took the rest of the country down paying to right the wrongs.

[Yupster]

32. It is true

on both sides, the prevailing wisdom is usually two steps.

1. I want something more.

2. Someone else should pay for it.

On edit, it would be nice to see someone say "raise everyone's taxes, even my own," instead of the more likely "raise someone else's taxes. I already pay too much."

[laughingliberal]

37. All well and good once the bottom 98% get back some of what the top 2% have stolen.

And we have had a few of the billionaires boys' clubs who have pointed out the unfairness of their secretaries paying more that they do in taxes.

[Recursion]

17. Why not use unemployment insurance money to hire people?

Don't have a job? We'll give you one at the same pay you would get for unemployment.

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. 100-200 billion program should be sufficient, with two caveats -

1) it is separate from a national high speed rail program (which would be @ 500 billion on its own)

2) we end our foreign adventures and close all but the 50 most critical overseas bases

The commensurate reduction in the military budget from #2 could be invested in #1, and with that balanced out 100-200 additional billion invested in infrastructure modernization would be adequate to prime the pump for the economy, by employing a million or two in jobs that did not perviously exist whose new spending ability would help sustain the regular jobs.

[amandabeech]

29. I want the President to dump this "free trade" nonesense,

and let us make what we buy and service what we make!!

A jobs program is great, and I want one, but it is only temporary.

[Fire1]

33. I don't mind free trade but as you imply, we import more than

we export! THAT'S the fuckin problem!!!

[amandabeech]

34. I don't think that it is possible under current trade circumstances for us

to bring our imports and exports into balance.

[TexasObserver]

31. Yes, and it should be a trillion dollar program.