Dan J

I don't exactly agree with fully getting rid of the Federal Gas tax. However I would like to see it ONLY fund Inter-state highways. This idea of funding other road projects, etc. need to be dropped on a Federeal level and leave it to the states to worry about their own transportation needs.

That only gets you so far in a modern economy. There are many metro areas that have workers that commute in to a city from out of state. There is no reliable way for a state to tax out of state citizens for using that states roads. Unless we start putting up border controls between states, the federal government has to be able to strike that balance.

The rich are already paying most of the tax burden in this country. The top 10% pay more than 50% of the taxes.

The bottom 50 percent of Americans pay no income tax at all - only Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Just how much is a "fair share"?

Why aren't the bottom 50% earning enough to pay more taxes?

We are in the perfect storm of factors in which, according to supply siders, we should see explosive growth at all economic levels.

1. Cost of credit is very low. (Although not available for everyone)

2. Taxes are at historic lows. (With some tax magic, a company can get effective tax rates in the 2-5% range)

3. Companies have a lot of cash on their books. (Over $2 trillion)

But the fact is that we are not. The reason we are not requires us to look at incentives. Companies are in the business to make money they are not in the business to make jobs. Jobs are often created as a result of growth. However a company can also increase profit by decreasing jobs and increasing efficiency/productivity.

For many large companies the US market is mostly saturated or the prospects of growth is much lower than the shareholders want. So they start moving operations to other countries. They create jobs in those countries or cut jobs in the US and move operations into cheaper labor markets.

For other companies, its a matter of automating more processes with new computer systems and software. (Some jobs go into creating to those systems, but its often a net loss in the long term)

Other companies with their large cash balances are going out to buy other companies and eliminating jobs in departments that are duplicated between companies.

So, in the end cutting taxes on the weathy and companies incentives the profit motivation of companies. However, greater profits does not correlate with job creation.

This was years ago and at a community college but the professor of an intermediate econ class I had was showing us the numbers of the surpluses from SS receipts. And he said that they don't go in a trust fund, they don't pay down the debt, the excess is spent...Was he wrong?

The government (general fund) still owes it to the social security trust fund. If the government defaults and doesn't pay pack its debts, then there is a problem.

The reason why there is not more competition is simple. The cost to building the infrastructure is immense and requires permits and cooperation from local governments. Cable and phone companies who got their infrastructure largely as government supported monopolies are not interested in opening up infrastructure to competitors.

If we are ever going to see any real competition, we need projects like the Utopia network throughout the country. A public/private infrastructure with a lot of private providers. But if telecom/cable providers get their way, it will be illegal for cities to start projects like the Utopia network.

You can always feel free to purchase the land rights, cable lines, etc. and start your own fiber-optic ISP or whatever.

I don't like cable monopolies anymore than anyone else (though they aren't true monopolies when you consider DirectTV + DISH + Local Cable Provider, etc. all do the same thing) but they do put the lines into place and do a lot of work to get to where they are. Why should someone rain on that parade?

Places with a publicly owned infrastructure tend to have much more competition between providers. Like the Utopia network in Utah.

Of course some people cry socialism whenever the suggestion of a city or state building a public communications infrastructure, even though it would provide more competition and choices to consumers in the end.

I don't understand why LinkedIn needs to go public.

So the owners can get their big payday.

Pretty much my thoughts on it.

What will be the next slogan "Keep your Libertarianism out of my Medicare"?

It wont pass, but simply voting for it gives Democrats ammunition in 2012. The Republicans most loyal voting block wont like the idea of Medicare getting cut.

A really bad economy opens eyes.

I thought the current administration promised to heal the country. Unify.

This country is more divided than ever.

It was never promised, but there were certainly many who expected it to happen.

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You have to pick 1 side or the other. Not both!

We are either spending too much blood and treasure in Iraq/Afghanistan or we are amazingly savvy investors and making billions and trillions in oil profits from being over there. Which one is it?

If we are making money from oil, its not the government thats getting it.

If we have a fair tax the poor would end up paying at least some taxes. All of a sudden their votes that are bought and paid for will be gone. Fair tax would never become a reality. The upper income already pay most of the taxes. They will just have to pay for more of them so tough luck to them. The extra taxes we will soak them with will still not pay for what we spend so the only way we will ever have a budget approaching a balance is for the middle class to pay more. Anyone think either major party will propose taxing the middle class more?

If you want the poor and middle class to pay more taxes you need to do two things:

1. End tax benefits for having children (Considering that families most directly benefit from things like education they shouldn't pay less than people without kids for them).

2. Reduce the wealth gap. If poor and middle income people earn more on average, they will pay more taxes.

The tax rates and brackets should reflect the distribution of wealth and current economic growth.

Yeah, flatter broader tax would be excellent... together with flatter broader incomes, of course

I am baffled by almost 50% Americans not paying any tax (they are with incomes of 44K or less per household and with 1.35 earners). They must be using some nice tricks to achieve no tax liability.

Let's see: 44K - 18.7 K (standard deductions and exemptions for a married couple with no kids) leaves a household with 25K of taxable income and 2.9K of tax liability.

How do they hide $2900 from the IRS?

Kids - Tax liability decreases around $1500 for each kid. (Until they are 17 anyway, then its less)

Next thing you know they will be allowing Unions to both

contribute to elections.

THe negotiate new contracts with their elected candidates for pay and benefit increases.

*Did I leave out the part where the State even collects Union dues for the Union?

So corruption is fine as long as Unions are not allowed to bribe elected officials?

Have you all noticed that our usual union apologists have been strangely quiet in this thread?

What for? Wall street investment firms have already accomplished crashing the market and redistributing wealth. They also destroyed one of their own in the process.

There are a lot of places in the world where our goal is to transition to a democratic system. However that does not automatically mean that we will be putting troops on the ground to do it. Of course for some conservatives military force is the only way to accomplish that goal.

I don't. 60+ is a good age to retire - you still have a good decade

to go before you have to carry a colostomy bag around and wear depends.

There is nothing stopping you from funding your own retirement if you want to retire earlier.

Buying American might have been a bit more patriotic.

Which American manufacturer makes electic cars that are less than $50,000

I'm trying to think who would support cutting Soc Sec. over cutting the bloated defense budget...

The question remains...why does the GOP hate America ?

The only types of people that support cutting social security are those that wont really a see a benifit from it and those crazy libertarian types that believe only the market should provide a retirement (Tell that to the people who retire near market recessions who loose most of the value of their 401k)

I actually agree with Boehner on that one.

That an readjusting the taxable income cap to take into account the growing wealth gap and that will keep social security solvent for a long time.

The article is ignorant of the fact the epicenter was 249 miles away from Tokyo.

Had that Earthquake hit Tokyo at that magnitude, we'd be seeing nothing but rubble on the screen and millions reported dead. No 'building code' can withstand that type of earthquake. That's magnitude is almost unheard of at the surface.

The earthquake was about 80 miles away from Sendai, which is a city of around 1 million people. Most of the deaths in the area seem to be linked to the tsunami and not collapsing buildings.

Steve Rattner, the Obama administration’s former "car czar" who has a book out about the

bailing out of General Motors and Chrysler, gives an interesting summary of his first

impressions of Detroit to Peter Lattman in the New York Times:

That can be summarised as: GM was a terrible company making surprisingly good cars. Or:

Detroit itself was in a bad way, whereas its manufacturing plants were healthy.

We shall see whether the “new GM” proves more energetic and disciplined in the long-term

but this could be an argument for moving the headquarters of the Big Three out of Detroit

and its surrounding areas, much as Boeing moved from Seattle to Chicago 10 years ago.

If the fundamental problem is the ingrained corporate culture at HQ, that is a reason to

blow it up and move somewhere else entirely. Alan Mulally, Ford’s chief executive, is a

former executive of Boeing, incidentally.

link

I think its more complicated than that.

Management at the big three did agree to the union contracts in the end, but I think they did so at a time when it was possible to honor them.

But the market changed, as it always does, the Japanese and Germans stared offering products in the US market that were better for roughly the same cost. Now, you can either improve your quality to compete, which requires culture changes that didn't happen very easily at any level of the company, or drop your price to place your products at a market point they actually belonged in, which they could not do because of the union agreements they made in the past.

There is always a market for lower quality products if the are priced appropriately.

PS. Either the republicans of wisconsin are morons for taking so long to find this loophole, or they were afraid their true intentions would be revealed as Steven said, and simply lost patience. Take your pick.

How long before Wisconsin joins Russia in making democracy a farce.

I also agree. Students should vote in their home district rather where they attend school.

If you spend a majority of the year where you are going to school, shouldn't you vote there?

Especially if you are going to school across the country, returning to your home district is not always convenient.

And how is it the Governor gets the name "Hosni"? he is not the one that left, the DEMs did.

It has something to do with the strong arm tactics he has used with the protesters and the Democrats in the Wisconsin legislature, plus a bit of unfortunate timing.

Sorry if I have put this in the wrong spot. I was wondering if anybody has gone from a domestic flight to an international flight at LAX and how much time you should have. It will be delta airlines for both flights. I remember I did this back in 2000 and at that time I had to get ALL my suit cases including checked bags find a small terminal and that terminal was where all the international flights came and went. Not sure if it has changed since or not. Looking for any advice people have.

Thanks,

Andy

At LAX not all international flights go out of the international terminal. It really depends on the airline.

If you are staying on Delta, and no other carrier is operating the international flight, then you may go in and out of the same terminal.

Maybe he should follow in Palin's footsteps and fire himself.