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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (598283)	1/17/2011 6:45:46 AM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576882

What does that have to do with canceling the unspent stimulus? What would a hiring freeze gain? Lower spending. The pay freeze Obama announced didn't cover step increases - they should freeze all pay raises.

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (598283)	1/18/2011 12:44:18 AM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576882

GM "paid off" its loan with other money and special targeted tax breaks from the feds. That's not very meaningful. GM stock which the government owns about 90% of will soon be sold at a large profit Not a profit when compared with all the money the feds have poured in to GM. As for AIG it paid the government back with a conversion of the preferred stock to common stock. If the government can dump that all on the market for enough to cover the government's cost (ideally including the time value of money costs as well) then at that point it could be said to be paid back, but not yet. How about cancelling that tax cut for the very rich? Not enough very rich to make much of a difference, esp. when the very rich have the ability to work around the tax increases, when higher tax rates on investment (which is where much of the income of the richest comes from), reduce, chase off, and distort investment, and when of the ordinary rich ran in to AMT instead of really getting a tax cut -- ---- Why the Bush tax cuts overpromised and underdelivered Posted by Allan Sloan, senior editor-at-large January 4, 2011 5:00 am For many of the people whom President Obama calls "rich," the Bush tax cuts didn't make much difference. That's largely because of the Alternative Minimum Tax. Now that the Bush tax cuts have been extended for two more years, let me share a dirty little secret with you. It's this. For many of the people whom President Obama calls "rich," including me, the Bush tax cuts didn't make much difference. That's because of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was created 40 years ago to foil rich tax dodgers but now doesn't affect people with income in the high six digits and above. Instead, the AMT has become the bane of the middle- and upper-middle classes, especially those of us who live in high-cost, high-tax areas. Washington won't fix or eliminate the AMT because the government would have to raise tax rates or pare back deductions to fill the ensuing revenue gap. To Obama, all families with at least $250,000 of annual income and single taxpayers with $200,000 are "rich." But to the AMT, many of them are prey. This parallel tax, which allows fewer deductions than the regular tax, ensnares millions of taxpayers with incomes of $75,000 through $600,000. There's no cost-of-living adjustment for this tax or Obama's definition of rich. For example, according to CNNMoney's cost-of-living calculator, making $250,000 in New York City's Manhattan (that's "rich") is like making $110,000 in Manhattan, Kans. (not rich). The Tax Policy Center says that three-quarters of taxpayers with incomes between $200,000 and $500,000 lost almost two-thirds of their Bush tax cut to the AMT. "Those people really got clobbered," says Roberton Williams, a TPC senior fellow. "On average, they lost 63% of their Bush tax cut."... finance.fortune.cnn.com