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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sdgla who wrote (16526)	4/9/2010 4:05:04 PM
From: John Koligman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Actually I'm more pissed off at people like these guys paying a 15% carried interest tax rate on billions of income.... "Are you OK with 50% of the voting population not paying any taxes ?" To: Tim Fowler who wrote (13475) 2/18/2010 2:32:11 PM From: John Koligman 3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) of 16526 "The wealth was not handed out to them by government fiat, they either created it themselves, helped others to create it, and/or inherited it from people who did those things." Tim, as you so 'eloquently say' these people DID do GREAT things! They shorted the mortgage market, and then got additional trillions as the government bailed out many of their firms. LOL!! April 16, 2008 Top Hedge Fund Earners for 2007 From Alpha magazine: 1 John Paulson Paulson & Co. $3.7 billion 2 George Soros Soros Fund Management $2.9 billion 3 James Simons Renaissance Technologies Corp. $2.8 billion 4 Philip Falcone Harbinger Capital Partners $1.7 billion 5 Kenneth Griffin Citadel Investment Group $1.5 billion 6 Steven Cohen SAC Capital Advisors $900 million 7 Timothy Barakett Atticus Capital $750 million 8 Stephen Mandel Jr. Lone Pine Capital $710 million 9 John Griffin Blue Ridge Capital $625 million 10 O. Andreas Halvorsen Viking Global Investors $520 million Of course, that's pre-tax.

To: Sdgla who wrote (16526)	4/9/2010 4:08:57 PM
From: John Koligman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Also, as I posted to you before, I don't know why you are so upset at the bottom 50%. The top is getting away with the lowest rates in decades as they rake in huge amounts of income... To: Sdgla who wrote (15452) 3/25/2010 7:49:05 PM From: John Koligman 2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) of 16528 Facts prove me wrong on what? I said your 'financially fortunate' should pay more than lower INCOME folks. You have a problem with that? Those at the top have pulled way ahead as the middle class struggles. TOP 400 Earners in U.S Averaged $345 Million in 2007, IRS Says Ryan J. Donmoyer Ryan J. Donmoyer – Thu Feb 18, 12:00 am ET Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The 400 highest-earning U.S. households reported an average of $345 million in INCOME in 2007, up 31 percent from a year earlier, IRS statistics show. The average TAX rate for the households fell to the lowest in almost 20 years. The figures for 2007, the last year of an economic expansion, show that the average INCOME reported by the TOP 400 earners more than doubled from $131.1 million in 2001. That year, Congress adopted TAX cuts urged by then-President George W. Bush that Democrats say disproportionately benefits the wealthy. Each household in the TOP 400 of earners paid an average TAX rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest since the agency began tracking the data in 1992, the Internal Revenue Service statistics show. Their average effective TAX rate was about half the 29.4 percent in 1993, the first year of President Bill Clinton’s administration, when taxes were increased. The statistics underscore “two long-term trends: that INCOME at the very TOP has exploded and their taxes have been cut dramatically,” said Chuck Marr, director of FEDERAL TAX policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington research group that supports increasing taxes on high-INCOME individuals. The TOP 400 earners received a total $138 billion in 2007, up from $105.3 billion a year earlier. On an inflation-adjusted basis, their average INCOME grew almost fivefold since 1992, the data show. Political Ammunition The data may provide ammunition for President Barack Obama and Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California who say they intend to increase the capital gains TAX rate and let TAX rates for the highest earners increase in 2011. Almost three-quarters of the highest earners’ INCOME was in capital gains and dividends taxed at a 15 percent rate set as part of Bush-backed TAX cuts in 2003, the statistics show. Of the 400 earners, 289 paid a total effective FEDERAL TAX rate of 20 percent or less in 2007, the last year for which figures were available, the data show. Bill Ahern, director of policy and communications for the TAX Foundation, a Washington research group that advocates lower taxes, said the 2007 data doesn’t reflect the current economic circumstances. “In a good year like 2007, it’s not surprising to see that the owners and managers of the nation’s largest firms made a fortune,” Ahern said. “Notice that two-thirds of their 2007 INCOME was in capital gains, which have dropped like a rock since then.” The data were first reported by TAX.com, a blog run by Virginia publisher TAX Analysts.

To: Sdgla who wrote (16526)	4/9/2010 4:32:32 PM
From: Alighieri	Respond to of 42652

...without ever replying to my points. Are you OK with 50% of the voting population not paying any taxes ? Is it OK with you that those who do not pay any taxes at all get to decide how much those who do pay Taxes pay out ? You reading my posts? I replied by telling you that you are WRONG. They do pay taxes...payroll taxes on all of their income and other taxes at the state level. peoplesnetworks.net You could care less that my hard earned tax $$'s are pissed away without a thought by corrupt politicians. Not one politician has said why dont we stop spending. Of course I do...i told you already that we spend way too much on defense and other non essentials. I am not an ideologue and tend to give complex topics their due, rather than shout out resentfully and wildly. When incentives to succeed are removed by government, guys like you are no longer employed by guys like me. So you look for handouts. Thats why your not in the trenches Al. Everything has its proper balance...and don't make assumptions about guys like me...i don't need your hand out nor your job. Your misconception that the rich, like Gates and Buffet, do nothing to help those in need. Your wrong. Even middle class families, like mine, give generously to charity to help those that are not well off. Charity is good and I am well aware of the contribution of the wealthy....but you can't run a country on selective charity. Al