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Let me see if I have this straight. Eduarto Porter vacations in Italy. A Dr. there waives the $10 co pay that he would have to pay in the States, and now he is in awe of Italy. He thinks that we should be more like them. Yeah! We should all sit on our fat asses looking for a handout from someone else. The EU is the only thing keeping Italy going. When that money runs out,they will be knocking on the door of the IMF. The IMF,that would basicly be us Americans bailing them out. Kind of like the coalition of the willing. Lets take a closer look at Eduarto Porter. Lets see what makes him tick:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/08/ ... ottom.html

Here is a man who has spent his whole career advocating neoliberalism. Tear down all trade barrriers. No restrictions whatsoever. Just a few days ago he wrote an article about the folly of attacking outsourcing. His two biggest pet peeves in life are defending outsourcing and illegal immigrants, two things which significantly REDUCE our tax base. He has no problem shipping our jobs to the third world. He has no problem allowing the third world sending their unwashed masses to our shores. Then he has the gall to write an article about how we are not paying enough taxes to support all the Americans who are suffering due to his policies! Unfucking believable! This asshole is talking out of both sides of his mouth. Which one is it going to be Eddy? Tear down all barriers and restrictions, or cradle to grave protection from the government? Will the real Eduarto Porter please stand up.

   

You conservatives can laugh and deride all you want, but the proof is in the pudding - America has collected significantly lower taxes than everyone else for close to 40 years. Current right wing economic theory appears to suggest that because of those lower taxes, that entire time should have been rosy as hell (given that all the other major nations had higher taxes), but there were plenty of dips and drops in that time frame.

So the spending problems many of you (and the Tea Party) are complaining about are NOT just spending problems, they are also general revenue problems.

Of course it is silly to raise taxes right now in a recession/depression/whatever the hell this is, but TWO GENERATIONS of under-funding are now coming home to roost.

Neither party is innocent in this, but one party (you guess which) has definitely exacerbated this problem by stalling on the budget and causing the country's credit rating to drop.

   

   

   

I think its funny that you posted an article that supports your way of thinking, but did no background on the author whatsoever. Eduarto Porter is constantly rambling on about how the world should be one big free trade zone. He is a proponet of "creative destruction". He states that the lower wages that the illegals command are good for business,and good for America. He is leading the race to the bottom. Therefore he has zero creditability when it comes to having a discussion about taxes being to low on Americans. It would be like David Duke holding a roundtable on inproving race relations in America. Its a hoax. It reminds me of when Joaquin Phoenix was claiming he was quiting acting to become a rapper. To pay more taxes,you need to have a job. Americans are losing their jobs because of assholes like Eduarto Porter,and his ilk.

As far as Americans underpaying taxes, I would agree with you. Before I would raise taxes on anyone, I would ask that the half of Americans that currently pay no taxes,belly up to the bar. How can a country survive when half their citizens contribute absolutely nothing? When everyone is contributing to the cause, then we can look into allocation.

   

Frankly, you can dodge the issue by bitching about the author, or you can deal with it. You have chosen the former, which is sad IMHO.

No matter who brought this issue up, right wing supporters in the US would have had an issue with it.

No matter how you slice it, the numbers are irrefutable (which you agree with), so in that case, it's really kind of irrelevant who opens the debate.

As for everyone contributing to tax revenues, you may have a point. But how much in the way of revenues is there to be had from taxing the poor? As the old saying goes, you can't get blood from a stone...

   

Dis gonna be good

   

Bootlegga
I have no problem dealing with the issue. I just happen to have a major problem with hypocrites as in the author of the article. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. I feel that if you talk the talk, you ought to walk the walk. Lets say you are a male politician who has made a career of bitching about gays, and you are arrested for hitting on an undercover officer in an airport bathroom stall. I would say that said politician deserves to have his nose rubbed in it a bit,thats all. Same with a left wing big government type that is caught lying about their residence to get out of paying higher taxes to a government that they want to solve everyones problems for them.

As far as getting blood out of a stone, the problem is bigger than that. There is a class of Americans who spend their whole lives on the dole. They live for free,eat for free, free medical care,etc. Guess which party caters to them? Come election time these people are told that the evil,racist GOP is going to take away the money that these people are "entiteled" too. The Democratic party sends people to the housing projects in busses to get these people to the polls on election day. They dream up every possible scheme to register these people to vote,short of actualy going in person on their own to register. These peoples votes are bought and paid for with my tax dollars. They contribute nothing to society. If these people were forced to do actual labor for their upkeep, the size of the government would shrink drasticly. Everyone should have to pay taxes, no exceptions. Let these people learn that government cost money.The more of their own money that they have to contribute to pie in the sky bullshit programs, the less likely they will be to vote for candidates who endorse these programs.Bring in workfare. Make able bodied people bust their asses working on some much needed infrastructure repairs. Kill two bird with one stone.

I pay my taxes. I know there is no free lunch. There is a lot of work to be done. Here in Vegas thousands of construction workers are out of work due to the housing bust. These people could be put to work building a much needed wall on our southern border,instead of mailing them a check each week to sit on their ass.[while they work under the table tax free].Lets stop making everyone out to be a victem. The Federal government has a lousy record of spending our tax dollars. Just today on the news there was a report of an Army General being investigated for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on his travel expenses. Hundreds of thousands? Seriously? It took this long to catch an oversite this large? If my checkbook is off by a dollar,I'm on the case. I think that I can safely speak for the majority of middle class Americans when I say that I do not want to pay another cent in taxes untill the government gets a handle on their spending, and the millions of lazy "entiteled" Americans get their fat asses out of the apple cart and start helping to pull.
On a side note: He wants to be more like Italy? Seriously?

   

How many of these people are there who live on the dole? Especially the meager dole the US hands out? And what steps are being taken to help these people get off the dole? What is their intelligence and educational level? What is their mental state?

I know the same argument is made in Canada. Employable people without children can only get welfare 2 out of 5 years, and for a single person it's only $620 a month. In Vancouver that doesn't take you very far, no way people are choosing this over work.

Anyway, making people on the dole pay taxes is insane, just the govt handing out money to re-collect. Making the working poor (a far greater number than the people on the dole) pay taxes to take away from their scant income, while the rich whine about their tax burden is just obscene.

The US has high unemployment - how can people help pull when there's no apple cart to pull?

   

I am glad you asked. What steps are being taken to get these people off of the dole? I would say none whatsoever. Certain politicians depend on these people to be dependent on government assistance to obtain their votes. They need these people to be dependent on government services to keep their job in public office. Calling these people working poor is obscene. They don't work. Never have,never will. Its a myth that the U.S. welfare system is meager. You can go to any public assisantce office in the States and see people drive up in nice new cars. Everyone waiting in line is texting away on their smartphone. One in seven people in the States is on food stamps. Are you going to tell me with a straight face that things are really that bad in one of the wealthiest countries on the planet? You look at pictures from the States during the great depression. You would see people standing in line for a mile to eat at a soup kitchen. Do you see that now? I don't. If anyone is standing in line today, they are texting on their smartphone, or setting their dvr to record a program that they might miss while waiting for their handout. Charity used to be for the very needy. The down and out.Nowadays everyone feels they are entitled to a handout. There is no shame in living off of the government,or private handouts. There is no longer a stigma for walking away from your debts,living off the sweat equity of others, or letting the government handle all your affairs for you. I'm sorry but my country did not get to be the most powerful country on the planet by being a nation of freeloaders. We used to have a Puritan work ethic. The immigrants that came to the States were not looking for a handout. They were looking for a chance to make it through their own hard work. One of the other threads on this forum is about working at McDonalds. Several posters have commented about the dignity of work, and that no job is beneath someone willing to work. That sentiment used to be part of my countries makeup. Used to be. We are all victems now. We have the right to sit on our fat ass and collect a check because we are traumatized by [ Insert whiny ass cause here]. All one has to do is look at the staggering numbers of people putting in for new disability cases in the last few years. We do not have a tax collection problem. We have a fat ass, lazy, victemhood,entitlement culture problem. We have turned into a bunch of whiny, candy ass pussies. We expect the government to step in every time we stub our toe. More tax dollars will not solve the problem. It will only add more fuel to the fire.

   

Mrs. Bart made a fine observation on this topic last night: Since Canadians are so wrapped up in congratulating themselves for paying higher taxes than do Americans then why is it that the US stores along the border are filled with so many Canadians looking to avoid paying Canadian taxes?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?

   

It's not just the taxes, the sticker price of identical products prior to the application of sales taxes can be much lower in the US than in Canada.

   

Mrs. Bart has made a valid point, as does saturn.

But, I have to seriously ask this...why are only American's tax averse? I thought all sane individuals were tax averse.

It would be one thing if governments were run efficiently, with definitive proof of effectiveness, but with all the waste and nonsense...hell, I try to keep every damn penny I can.

   

Yep, because we also have lower costs in the supply chain. For example, your truckers and railroads pay higher fuel taxes than ours do so the costs to get the identical products to market here are lower than in Canada and that allows US retailers to charge lower prices than their Canadian subsidiaries or competitors.

But that begs the question of why Canadians, who apparently think the US should pay higher taxes, are evading their own taxes by making their purchases in the US?

Seems to me that if you folks dared to put a tax decrease up to a vote it would pass by a comfortable margin.

   

Yes, that's it, they shop there to avoid the GST. Nothing to do with lower prices at all. There's a big fuss over Canadians buying food such as dairy in the US. There is no GST on dairy. What there is, is he US govt subsidizing milk production with tax dollars they don't have.

   

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