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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (43359)	3/8/2001 9:33:31 PM
From: Fred Levine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

FWIW--I heard on the car radio that the society of civil engineers stated that the infrastructure of the US is in terrible shape and may need, I believe, $100 billion in money for essential repairs--bridges, tunnels,rails, roads, etc. This figure is not incongruent with my observations. Also, having lived in Germany, their infrastructure is vastly superior. Traffic lights are timed, etc .A RR that is comfortable and efficient. They do pay higher taxes for these services. Our repairs will cost money. Where will it come from, the working poor, of course. Furthermore, this afternoon, I went to a Mercedes dealership.It was jammed. I had to wait 25 minutes to get some attention. I think the economy has been good to some folks. fred

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (43359)	3/8/2001 9:34:27 PM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

"If it is not good, raise the brackets, don't lower the rates. How about 39.6% on a middle 6 figure income or a high 6 figure income? " Cary, I will consider that solution if you will cap the highest rate at 39.6% forever. Trick is to maximize revenue without hurting incentive so i am not sure about the actual rates..But perhaps we could set aside that money from the additional 6.6% you collect for a health care solution of some type. In recent years when i had a big tax bite I would have been comforted by seeing that money setaside for the public good where i could see a result. My problem is whether in the US today, the government could produce a program which actually is not mired in bureacracy and where close to 100% of every dollar goes to the people it is designed to help. Another solution for those funds would be the old Dick Nixon negative income tax scheme where the minimum income for taxable income is raised considerablely and/or a tax credit of some type for payroll tax is given to low/middle income folks. My problem with government is that when they get a hold of some money they tend to spend it wastefully so I am always inclined to the money back in the taxpayers hands. And gathering surplus in recessionary times to pay off the debt is counterproductive. Another idea; what about using excess tax revenue you collect at the highest levels for individual health care accounts to pay private insurance premiums for those folks who dont have it? For this plan the government would approach insurance companies just as businesses do to insure the uninsured. Bids would be competitive. For those that already have insurance, the account can accrue tax free and be available at retirement if it never needs to be tapped for health care. Man I am on a roll tonight. Now the conservatives will be bashing me. mike

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (43359)	3/8/2001 11:14:28 PM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

OT: REIf it is not good, raise the brackets, don't lower the rates. How about 39.6% on a middle 6 figure income or a high 6 figure income? Why should we keep it in the US? Why not have ALL in the US pay 85% tax, even the working poor as they are orders of magnitude better off than many in Africa? We can then support the rest of the World since we use THEIR resources to get our wealth and pollute THEIR air with our industry and warm THEIR planet with our Greenhouse gasses.... Sound silly? Why should Our poor get such special treatment? They live much, much better than many average citizens in many countries. You want class warfare, well, our poor look rich to many.