The tax rate on the rich is not the problem, it's the loopholes

[zephyrprime]

Who has the guts to close the loopholes?

Lots of people but those people would never get enough campaign contributions to even start a run for office, lol.

Look, I'm not addressing you specifically EagleKeeper but I kind of tire how little progress we make in talking about things on P&N. We all know that the reason why things are how they are. It's because of money in politics. Or, as it is known by historians, CORRUPTION. It's that simple. Rich people pay democratically elected politicians to write laws favorable to them. The politicians are themselves usually rich so they write tax laws so that they won't have to pay much in taxes. It's very easy to understand corruption. It's only a little harder to understand tribal mentality that creates partisan politics.

I'm not on the P&N board as much as I used to be because my political education is essentially complete now. Little has changed though in the real world. And nothing will either until a horrible enough crisis hits that enough people get mad enough to actually give a damn about what's going on around in the larger world. Normal people, not like people on P&N, have tunnel vision in their lives. They don't care about politics and instead are overly focused on the minutiae of their own lives. I guess this used to be a functional evolutionary adaptation since organisms need to be focused on their own survival and should not waste attention of events far away that they can't control.

Except in the modern world, events far away can have a big impact on your life. And events far away can even be partially controlled through the democratic electoral process. But humans are anachronistic and not suited for the modern world. Thus, they will suffer for their shortcomings. Shortcomings are natural though. That's just how it is.

 

[Jeff7]

Ding...ding....ding....ding.

Don't worry about importing everything, the service jobs left behind will be just fine. We promise. /crosses_fingers_behind_back.

:colbert::whiste:

How long until the french fries are made in China?


Or for all I know, they already are. Buy cheap fries of questionable quality, perhaps even made of potatoes, from China, and then sell our good US-grown potatoes elsewhere for more money.

Lots of people but those people would never get enough campaign contributions to even start a run for office, lol.
...

Yup. If you're going to cost companies dozens or hundreds millions of dollars by making them pay taxes on income they made in this country, almost certainly made possible by its tax-funded infrastructure, they're going to spend money because of your candidacy - specifically, to extinguish it.

 

[IGBT]

don't forget the home mortage deduction "loop hole" and dependent "loop hole" and all the other deduction "loop holes" you fudge and fart into your tax return every year.

 

[Engineer]

don't forget the home mortage deduction "loop hole" and dependent "loop hole" and all the other deduction "loop holes" you fudge and fart into your tax return every year.

I'm sure that Romney and crew are looking exactly at those "loopholes" when talking about cutting taxes 20% and eliminating loopholes. As his adviser stated, we need to cut rates and "broaden the base". The only way to broaden the base after cutting rates is to remove enough deductions to have MORE people paying.