Sway the Undecided

[G.Irish]

i believe that every soldier does now in fact have body armor.

They do all have body armor, in fact, all soldiers had body armor before being deployed. (despite kerry's lies of the contrary)
It all just wasnt the brand new model of armor

Well if you remember correctly critics of Kerry were saying he voted against the bill that would've given soldiers body armor so its not like Kerry was the only one who brought up the issue nor is it that only Demoocrats were complaining.

[JohnC]

Two words: flat tax

So a person relying on an income of $25,000/year should pay the same percentage as a wealthy person making $1,000,000/year?

Assume a 20% tax rate - Joe Blue Collar is out $5,000 - and he'll miss every penny of that. Bill Gates pays $200,000 but keeps $800,000 - and I'm sure he'll be eating Ramen noodles because of it.

So is that fair? Or does it disproportionally impact the low-income folks? I agree that the current taxation system in this country is broken, but I don't think that a flat tax is the solution...

[G.Irish]

Two words: flat tax.

Throw out all the current tax code. It's 50,000+ pages of garbage is so convaluted that it creates loopholes. So many loopholes that corporations spends billions of dollars of a year to pay for efforts to search these loopholes out and exploit them. I firmly believe that the complexity of our tax code actually manifests malignant corporate governance behaviors in our country. In fact, it's not a new phenonemon, but occurs in many other countries, and especially happened following the privatization of many institutions in Eastern Europe.

The current tax code is ridiculously complex true and it needs to be massively simplified. However, the reason I don't agree with flat tax for the most part is that it has a disproportionate effect on people who don't make much money. If you make $1 million a year, 10% tax doesn't mean anything to you. If you're working poor making $15,000, that $1500 is going to hurt you a lot more.

Of course I don't know how the numbers work out. Maybe we could have a flat tax of 7 or 8 percent and be fine. In the end there does need to be tax code reform.

[JohnC]

Haha... Right on G 8)

[John]

i believe that every soldier does now in fact have body armor.

They do all have body armor, in fact, all soldiers had body armor before being deployed. (despite kerry's lies of the contrary)
It all just wasnt the brand new model of armor

All soldiers had body armor if you count a BDU as armor. On a serious note, Kerry is in fact partially correct that not all soldiers had body armor. I've worked with a few people who have fellow soldiers that actually purchased armor of their own because they were not issued any. Kerry is exaggerating his statistic though...

[John]

So a person relying on an income of $25,000/year should pay the same percentage as a wealthy person making $1,000,000/year?

Assume a 20% tax rate - Joe Blue Collar is out $5,000 - and he'll miss every penny of that. Bill Gates pays $200,000 but keeps $800,000 - and I'm sure he'll be eating Ramen noodles because of it.

So is that fair? Or does it disproportionally impact the low-income folks? I agree that the current taxation system in this country is broken, but I don't think that a flat tax is the solution...

The current tax code is ridiculously complex true and it needs to be massively simplified. However, the reason I don't agree with flat tax for the most part is that it has a disproportionate effect on people who don't make much money. If you make $1 million a year, 10% tax doesn't mean anything to you. If you're working poor making $15,000, that $1500 is going to hurt you a lot more.

Of course I don't know how the numbers work out. Maybe we could have a flat tax of 7 or 8 percent and be fine. In the end there does need to be tax code reform.

I never stated that ALL basic deductions / exceptions be thrown out. Fact is that the "lower income" people don't pay the full flat tax since they are entitled to basic exemptions, plus the standard one. So somebody making less than $20K / year really won't be paying anything to the government.

[Jess]

There's a reason so many Americans don't have health insurance, mainly because of the extremely high liability costs (thank you trial lawyers) and pharmaceutical costs (you can thank the FDA for that one).

Counterpoint! "Jane you ignorant slut...." :wink:

While I do think there is a lot of reform that is needed within the legal system (the most effective would be stricter sanctions for Rule violations), I do have a counterpoint to the argument that health care/insurance is in the shitter due to trial lawyers.

First off, in states that have already passed tort reform measures and have had in place damage caps for years now, the insurance premiums for doctors in those states have NOT gone down (as everyone thinks it will).

Secondly, being that insurance companies now make up a large share of the market's institutional investors, the insurance premiums run the cyclical gamut of the market just like anything else of this nature. (I quote this from my Corporate Law professor who is the smartest lady ever ) So a doctor's insurance premium is likely to go up and down with the market fluctuations, not because some guy in Anytown USA succeeded in a medmal action.

Further add to this point that most juries are sympathetic to doctors (at least they are in GA ) and that some states (GA included) now require an affidavit from a doctor stating that the claim presents a valid medical issue before a medmal suit can be filed.

Of course, people only hear about the weird bizarro cases that bring in millions, so they assume there is an "epidemic". Fearmongering, that's what that is. :twisted:

[.RJ]

medmal action.

Is that like redrum?

[Feersty]

I hope Kerry doesnt win.

[Dragon]

Thanks for your profound insight into the candidates and their platforms Rob.

[Jess]

medmal action.

Is that like redrum?

sure why not

[Mike]

Thanks for your profound insight into the candidates and their platforms Rob.

Didn't you know Rob's middle name is "Profound Insight"?

[Dragon]

I thought he had it legally changed to :?:

[Mike]

same thing

[Dragon]

This should help people satisfy some lingering anger:
http://www.slapthecandidate.com/

[Mike]

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[Andy]

I wonder if any one has thought about these few points.

* President Bush cut taxes in 01 because the economy was going well. The American people know how to spend their money.

* Cut Taxes because the economy wasn't going well in '02. The economy needed to be stimulated.

* Has anyone read Richard Clarke's book or Bob Woodward's book? They both say that the Administration planned for war with Iraq before 9/11.
(Once the election is over, and everyone's blood has cooled a bit, I would hope everyone would check out these two books as well as the War Room and Woodward's book on Clinton's first term.)

* "Axis of Evil" was a slogan that the President's writers threw together in order to address Iraq without singling it out. Korea and Iran were after-thoughts.

* President Bush's administration reclassified 5 million acres of Wetlands, and a week later, during a press conference in the Everglades, President Bush announced the re-reclassification of a million acres of wetland and called it a victory for the preservation of our wetlands.

I respect anyone who will/has voted for Bush but please recognize that he has made a lot of serious mistakes that border on negligence.

Regarding tax codes, regressive tax policies may, indeed, be good for our economy, but our fellow citizen's ability to care for themselves are paramount to most other concerns. A robust economy need not hurt its workers nor be a communist construct. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations never spoke of the amoral, selfish capitalism we have now. Smith envisioned a responsible, ethical marketplace. Non zero sum is the popular modern term for it. It essentially means, your gain doesn't necessitate another's loss.