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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amy J who wrote (514722)	12/22/2003 11:53:26 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

How does 250K in income pay less tax than 60K?

To: Amy J who wrote (514722)	12/23/2003 1:09:56 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Hi AmyJ! I think you and I are on the same page, takes need to be more fair. CEOs are more sophisticated with financial strategies such as deductions, resulting in (what is perceived here) the scrappy 60k Gen Y and Gen X subsidizing wealthy 250k Baby Boomers. It's a serious generational gap tax issue here. I have an issue with Fica. It raises the working groups to an unreasonable tax rate, over 40%. There is no benefit to this group to put money in FICA, the "not a tax" argument doesn't work AT all for anybody under 40. This is the largest problem with taxing salaries vs. capital gains imho. Why dump this on the young workers? What amazes me is all the disingenous proposals by republicans advocating a "flat tax"- BUT they leave off fica. In other words you get a flat tax if your income is passive, or you are making over $85K. Everybody else gets socked with the bill. Meanwhile, your salaried paycheck is guaranteed by law (it's a federal violation not to run payroll for employees' work performed.) Well, this is interesting but in real life sometimes those paychecks don't seem all that "secure"!!! BTW there is an interesting special on frontline running now about how the current white house allowed the drug companies to dictate the prescription drug plan for seniors at the expense of the nation. The supreme court, in a surprise ruling, allowed MaineRX (which was a bargaining deal the state of Maine was trying to push for drugs)- the pharma lobby challenged it on the basis of "free markets" and the supreme court ruled with Maine. After this, the drug companies started pushing for a prescription drug plan with congress because they were afraid all states would do what Maine did. Their objective was to push a plan with no price controls or free market influence and that is what they got, at a cost of 400 billion. The pharmaceutical industry spends 15% on advertising and 13.x% on R&D so the "no new drugs will be funded" argument is bogus. Now we have another boondoggle guaranteed to push social security and the federal budget into the red in the next 20 years. Incredible fiscal mismanagement by the GOP and their special interest budget.