Obama: 6 month report card

[Old'n'Slow]

Too soon to judge. The guy took office in the middle of a shitstorm most definitely not of his making. And with the Republican Party's continuing alienation of the nation's upcoming largest voting group, AKA Latinos, you'd better get used to a Republican minority.

[M-technik-3]

Anybody notice how their Civil relief money is being spent in there respective areas? The call was to rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges so we don't have a Minneapolis event again. Yet most of the states are doing work on limited to no bridges and resurfacing roads barely with a skim coat of asphalt. The tore up the state's only toll road and it re-did it yet it was done so poorly in less than a month it's rutted already.

No control over how and where the money goes. My local town did sidewalks Great!! yet the roads are pot hole strewn and I have two wheels being fixed at the towns expense.

I am surprised it's gone fairly well so far but he sure stuck his foot in his mouth on the Boston incident. Should have gotten the facts straight. For 14 years he had 12 outstanding tickets with Cambridge PD it was till a week prior to his announcement that he was running for Presidency.

[gwb72tii]

on the OP,
I voted for him and I'm not sorry for it. Bush left a wrecking ball for whoever followed him, McCain wouldn't have done any better. Maybe worse, we will never know.

His plans for health care put a smile on my face, best case scenario is we take a wrecking ball to that shit. These pigs are filthy fucking rich off sick people, and now amount to 1/5 of the economy. You better believe they will put up a fight, and they will say anything to convince people that it is a bad idea, including straight-up lies.
People like Rush can eat a dick, they will do nothing but bitch and complain until next term even if the economy suddenly bounces back .



Yeah, the tax rate would increase. The way i'd like to see it is a flat tax with a baseline modifier that is just 1 number subtracted from the total. This number is what the flat tax would be if you made minimum wage.
So basically if you are down there the net is 0 or even getting some back.
The more you make the more this number is insignificant.
This plan has a side effect of replacing welfare without all the overhead.
As long as you are a tax filing citizen that is.
So there, everyone is happy.

Along with this we get rid of all the damn deductions and crap, it would be so simplistic that nothing can weasel out of it. If that means it's unprofitable to flip a stock 60 times a day or some shit, so be it they can do something productive for a change.

if i were you i'd find out what i was talking about before posting anymore.
we're glad you're happy the messiah was elected. we're all going to take it in the ass in the form of higher taxes, lower standard of living, and a health care system that is rationed to control costs. we'll all see how smug you are when you tear your ACL skiing and the fed IMAC board says you can't have the corrective surgery because your older than 40. and your mom, who needs a bypass to live, is denied because she's 72. this is the kind of healthcare provided in other socialistic health systems, like canada and great britain. it a fucking disaster. fact: the USA has the best healthcare system in the world. why would you turn it over to the federal govt when there are no examples of anything the govt runs that actually is better then the private sector, except the military. and even the military is inefficient, although our brothers and sisters in arms kick major ass when called on, god bless them.

one of the big reasons the current health care insurance system is like it is is because of government regulations. currently, insurance companies do not compete across state lines, so portability is out. there is no competition in healthcare insurance.

if you're a 20 something year old, the messiah is dooming you to serfdom as the debt he's incurring for political ends will cause inflation, a devalued dollar, and much higher interest rates. there isn't enough wage earners to tax to pay for all this without a substantially lower standard of living.

the profit margin in the insurance industry is about 3% on average, about the same as most large corporations.

the system is not broken. does it need to be better? absolutely. the messiah aim in this whole fubar proposal is for political aims, not to make the system better. the democrats in congress want to control 20% of the economy cause it makes us dependent on them, and that ensures their re-election chances, this is a power grab.

do you really want some faceless unelected govt mid level manager telling you what you can and cannot do for yourself? that is where this is headed.

imho

[wildstoats]

His body language and facial expressions say a lot about him, and that is, he is full of shit.

No way!? What politician with any clout isn't full of shit?

[joshh]

"Free health care for everyone!!!!!"


But you're going to pay for it, REALLY pay for it.

I have great ideas as well, but shouldn't one have a plan of attack before trying to get a idea rolling?!

[Schnitzer318is]

And that's the huge danger of any government program and government regulatory interventions. Once you get them in place, and people find ways to make big money based off of the skewed reality that the government created, you have an almost impossible time stopping it.

Regulations, and especially financial regulations, need to be very, very carefully planned with an eye towards eliminating artificial market influences. But, most legislators are more interested in lining their pockets and retaining power than they are in doing the right things.

That's why this health care thing is so terrifying. They have absolutely no idea what the repercussions will be.

I agree with all of the above, but believe lobbying could be curtailed, or eliminated.

My solution to campaign reform would be to simply cap the amount of money you can spend. You can get it from anywhere you like, but you're capped on how much you can get. And I mean cap it reasonably. That would severely dissuade ridiculous campaign contributions from private interest groups and industry.

Health care is a hit or miss for me. If done properly it could vastly improve America... if improperly it could seriously hamper the 15% (I think that's correct) of our GDP that is the health care industry. I just don't know for the life of me why he's in such a hurry to push it through. I wish he would wait until the economy was back on it's feet before federalizing that big a section of the economy.

[metalix1021]

Yeah, the tax rate would increase. The way i'd like to see it is a flat tax with a baseline modifier that is just 1 number subtracted from the total. This number is what the flat tax would be if you made minimum wage.
So basically if you are down there the net is 0 or even getting some back.
The more you make the more this number is insignificant.
This plan has a side effect of replacing welfare without all the overhead.
As long as you are a tax filing citizen that is.
So there, everyone is happy.

That is not a flat tax. That is a progressive tax.

Maybe I am not understanding you correctly, but what you are saying is that if you make minimum wage, you would pay no income taxes, and possibly get a check from the government during tax season?

[Hallen]

i was not blaming him solely for the situation, just for allowing it to continue because so many people were making so much money. Same goes for the Congress as you mentioned. Actually, I would blame lobbyists before I pointed my finger at anyone else. Lobbying should be illegal.

And that's the huge danger of any government program and government regulatory interventions. Once you get them in place, and people find ways to make big money based off of the skewed reality that the government created, you have an almost impossible time stopping it. Bush found that out the hard way. He did try to revamp and curtail the whole mortgage fiasco, but he got blocked. I suspect that even the RNC was pushing on him to back off of that particular nugget since it would have caused repercussions for the next election (what little good it did them in the end).

Regulations, and especially financial regulations, need to be very, very carefully planned with an eye towards eliminating artificial market influences. But, most legislators are more interested in lining their pockets and retaining power than they are in doing the right things.

That's why this health care thing is so terrifying. They have absolutely no idea what the repercussions will be.

You can't eliminate lobbying. What you might be able to eliminate is campaign donations. I suspect the only way to do that is to use tax money to setup a fund that is used for all campaigns. No other money source would be allowed. Not even the private money of the candidate. But policing that kind of thing would be very hard. But there will always be the back door money chain that will always influence public policy. Not all of it is bad, but a lot of it is.

[che13]

Watch his next press conference with the audio turned off.

His body language and facial expressions say a lot about him, and that is, he is full of shit.

6 months in, and he's already below 50% job approval ratings in two major polls and in the low-mid 50's in several others.

what poles are you talking about where his approval rating is less than 50% and in the low 50s in two other polls?

just curious

[E30 Cabrio]

Watch his next press conference with the audio turned off.

His body language and facial expressions say a lot about him, and that is, he is full of shit.

6 months in, and he's already below 50% job approval ratings in two major polls and in the low-mid 50's in several others.

[Schnitzer318is]

A flat tax ignores that part so most of the objection comes from pro-government and pro-government welfare program types.

Agreed... I have never been a supporter of the welfare system in its current form. It needs serious revamping. But at least a flat tax would be an incentive to improve your financial position as in my previous example. 10% of a small income has more effect on the taxpayer than 10% of the higher income.

True, he didn't stop it, but the record will show that he was blocked by the democrat controlled congress every time he did try and do something about it. Point your anger at people like Barny Frank when it comes to this financial mess. He and his cronies are the problem there (along with Clinton and Carter... yes, it goes that far back).

i was not blaming him solely for the situation, just for allowing it to continue because so many people were making so much money. Same goes for the Congress as you mentioned. Actually, I would blame lobbyists before I pointed my finger at anyone else. Lobbying should be illegal.

This why everyone pays a fair share, as it sits now the 1% or so pay the largest burden of taxes and the bottom 50ish% dont pay any.

Correct, the top 1% has the greatest burden (around 37%). But they make 19% of the total income of the country!!!!!!!!!!! LOL the taxes won't be affecting them much, especially with all the high priced accountants they can hire to help hide/offset income. The top 10% share about 44% of the taxes, but again that won't hurt them. The bottom 50% only pay about 3% of the taxes but there are whole helluva lot more people in that bottom 50%, meaning that proportionally each person pays a greater percentage of their income. This excludes people making less than $15,000 with 5 kids of course. Damn tax incentives to have huge families.

Quoted for posterity.

You really are completely fucking clueless.

Because I asked if a flat tax was a percentage? I am sorry wise man for not knowing everything there is to know. Tell me, what is the meaning of life? Surely you must know.

I like how all the right wingers on this forum think they are some sort of enlightened, all-knowing philosophers. In reality, it's just the same shit that the liberal whackos spew but with a different political bias. Get over yourselves. All this anti-Obama talk lately has put you people right up there with the 9/11 truthers. Fuck off.

[z31maniac]

Is a flat tax a percentage?

Quoted for posterity.

You really are completely fucking clueless.

[Wiglaf]

on the OP,
I voted for him and I'm not sorry for it. Bush left a wrecking ball for whoever followed him, McCain wouldn't have done any better. Maybe worse, we will never know.

His plans for health care put a smile on my face, best case scenario is we take a wrecking ball to that shit. These pigs are filthy fucking rich off sick people, and now amount to 1/5 of the economy. You better believe they will put up a fight, and they will say anything to convince people that it is a bad idea, including straight-up lies.
People like Rush can eat a dick, they will do nothing but bitch and complain until next term even if the economy suddenly bounces back .

YES

Yeah, the tax rate would increase. The way i'd like to see it is a flat tax with a baseline modifier that is just 1 number subtracted from the total. This number is what the flat tax would be if you made minimum wage.
So basically if you are down there the net is 0 or even getting some back.
The more you make the more this number is insignificant.
This plan has a side effect of replacing welfare without all the overhead.
As long as you are a tax filing citizen that is.
So there, everyone is happy.

Along with this we get rid of all the damn deductions and crap, it would be so simplistic that nothing can weasel out of it. If that means it's unprofitable to flip a stock 60 times a day or some shit, so be it they can do something productive for a change.

[mrsleeve]

YES


A flat percentage for all no matter the income comes off the top every year and the rest is yours.

Halen: Yes a flat tax may be punitive for the most poor in that they would have to pay an income tax, rather than get a refund on top of not paying anything. But thats an easy fix, house holds making less than xxxx.xx amount per yer are exempt of the income tax and make that a very low number, below welfare numbers. SO if you make enough to live and not live on govt assistance you pay no tax, live on the govt aid and you pay tax on it. I would not be opposed to the 1st year of govt assistance being tax free, that way the people that really need it are exempt, but begin to live on it and take advantage of the generosity of others and you pay tax on your income no matter where it comes from just like the rest of us.

Only 2 things are certain in this world those are Death and Taxes