Nearly half of US households do pay fed income tax

RF, no. but funny.

No collegiate discourse here.
Must be YCC.

And Bill Clinton could have taken Bin Laden out but didn't. Lots of fault to go around.

I'm for killing and capturing terrorists who wish to cause mass destruction to America, aboutready is for calling our military action after 9-11 useless, and I'm vile?

aboutready, keep pushing for government handouts and try to keep the hypocritical insults to yourself thank you.

we've certainly gone around and around on this. how much are you willing to pay in blood and money for this?

are you willing to go and risk your life? or send a close family member?

rs, you're not funny. and you are so nasty and tightly wound that you'd be a total bore in almost all situations. that reduces the possibilities for discourse.

you think that having an ivy league degree has anything to do with swearing? you also are not a student of history. and, btw, as i said, you indulged yourself the other day. maybe you have a youtube you can post in response?

come on LIC...what are willing to do?

licc, you look good in fatigues? you go, guy.

cost benefit analysis. how much gained? how much lost?

if you think we can afford to be the policeman to the world well then let the taxes increase, because honestly without being policeman to the world our debt levels would be hugely less (although halliburton's profits would be less also and i'm not sure how we could live with that). i know, you'd prefer to send troops into situations we can't win rather than feed our poor, but that's just you. and cheney. and limbaugh.

nice company you keep, licc.

you think that having an ivy league degree has anything to do with swearing?
swearing is a crutch.

What do you think the world would be like without America's military? What would western Europe be like under Russian domination? How much strife would their be in Asia between Japan, China and Korea? What would have happened in the Balkans?

What disgusting views you have aboutready. You want a world at war and under oppression, with a government that gives you free handouts. Despicable.

what a disgusting world you want, licc, where the populace has to pay for military actions that have no benefit and yet are given a corporatist state where they pay the taxes for that and have corporate socialism.

you are so dumb.

What do you think the world would be like without America's military?

Great question!
Diplomacy without leverage is BEGGING!!!

so...are you off to the front with your buddy, LIC?

No swearing indicates a lack of ability to express one's self. Perhaps you could take it upon yourself to grow. Change the word "FUCK" to "MOO" and you'll realize how it sounds.

bulletin from the front?

how about your buddies in china---laughing themselves silly as we borrow more and more from them to send troops to afghanistan. the joke is on us.

you really think that everything would have gone to shit if we hadn't done such things as support the shah of iran? etc. etc. etc.

without america's military you think afghanistan and iraq would have been able to take over the world? shit, all we needed was to take a page from the anti-terrorism lesson books from london and certain other european cities. you people and your aggrandized ideas of america's importance crack me up. we'd actually likely have a great deal more power if we hadn't diluted it with such useless actions, some absolutely indefensible philosophically (other than we wanted it, of course, like spoiled children).

aboutready thinks there is no benefit to killing and capturing wicked terrorists that want to and plot to do mass harm to Americans. What a moronic view of the world.

when are you leaving?

if its such a wonderful mission, surely you want to take your part in it?

if it costs $10mm a terrorist is it worth it? how about $20mm? how about a trillion, only a couple of s ringleaders caught (and that due to intelligence, not people fighting on the ground), a country destroyed that we can't morally leave, and enormous costs to our troops and finances?

what a moron.

LIC,
My view is the terrorism thing is awful. Don't wish the responsibility of protecting this country on anyone but thankful patriots take it up(considering the heavy burden). Where I draw the line, is how this administration refuses to consider a terrorist act a war crime, and likens it to a felony.

and for every so called terrorist, how many poor civilians have we killed? what do you think their families think of the US of A? what would you think if the situation were reversed?

have you enlisted yet in the great crusade?

terrorism is awful? wow, can I quote you? that is downright profuckingfound.

Thousands of American lives have been saved from foiled plots against America, in part from the intelligence gathered from our military action in Afghanistan. aboutready says that it isn't worth it because it costs a lot of money.

Just idiotic.

how many lives have been saved? please cite your source on this.

and you can't use riversider as a source.

Absolutely agree Riversider. This is a war against terrorist groups, not a criminal case.

terrorism is awful, right up there with profanity.

lic---when are you leaving for the front?

or are you just a windbag that sits in a chair and sends others off to their death?

aboutready thinks that the world would be one big safe happy place without America's military. In her bizarro world. How delusional she is.

oh, sure, licc. really. quantify it.

we have totally revamped all of our ingress and egress routes. it has been almost 10 years since the attacks which shouldn't have occurred in the first place if georgie porgie had been on top of anything. we've got almost nothing out of the wars in terms of intelligence and indeed the problems seem to be escalating with our presence.

but hey, there are other world problems too. let's occupy pakistan, north korea, etc. just because we want to, so that the good old USofA can remain safe.

lic--what kind of person advocates the use of military force but is not willing to participate?

a. a coward
b. a blowhard
c. an idiot

you pick

cc, licc doesn't need to go himself. he's probably too old. he should just commit his children to the cause.

that works.

so--lic, how soon are the kids are to the front?

Great point on Iran by they way. U.S. & Brittish policy helped radicalize the country. We're not perfect. That said, there's no justification for the policy Iran has embarked on arming Hezbolah and tormenting it's citizens and building nuclear bombs.

LIC Comm: "Bill Clinton could have taken Bin Laden out but didn't."

Have you forgotten the GOP response to Clinton's efforts to shut down terrorists following the embassy bombings? They said he was "wagging the dog" as a way to divert attention from his love life. They willfully obstructed his efforts to intercede. They scored political points, and as a direct result we suffered the attacks on 9/11. Well, that and the Bush Administration ignore specific intelligence warning of it.

when are you leaving?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go

end of discussion.

No surprise here, NYT writing essentially an op-ed piece posing as a news article to perpetuate their bias:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html

Pleasant suprise here, overwhelming majority of readers comments see the fallacy in depending solely on the very top to carry the entire load:
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html

ar - wasnt looking to pile on given you were tete-a-tete with licc and rs, but really, lets not put his all on georgie porgie and his band of merrymen. trace back even beyond clinton to carter in the middle east and even before that the seeds were sown.

again, the philosophical chasm is hard to bridge but lets try hard not to stray from the path. lots of bad actors in that region of the world. and their hatred of western ideals and philosophy runs deep from the mountains of pakistand to the deserts of sinai. and don't believe for a second that the radicals wouldnt rejoice in the streets if they had the capability of hitting our shores pretty hard.

what you gonna say/do when israel goes solo and takes a preemptive strike against iran? to paraphrase georgie and his c- efforts at your esteemed ivy league, with them or against them?

sorry for the abysimal bad spelling and grammar. couple of glasses of vino on this fine night and lack of use of spellcheck will do that at times.

ha, did it again.

"Where I draw the line, is how this administration refuses to consider a terrorist act a war crime, and likens it to a felony."

Your referring to how the Bush administraion prosecuted the shoe bomber and the 20th hijacker in federal court, right? Oh, your referring to Obama. Bush's prosecution of terrorists in federal civilian court was ok but Obama's is not.

President, alan is graciously holding a sidecar soiree on his terrace (care of aboutready). plenty of room if you get there early but don't forget to bring your own bottle of cognac, gava wava and your own lemons to be admitted at the door. and be careful of any damage to his interiors, make sure you have appropriate insurance coverage (the gvmt kind) in case of breakage. mozaltov!

My interiors are perfectly damagable, no government insurance needed. What time will you be here to join us? I suggest 6:2:1

Too bad the other cocktail event is so persistently unbumpable. Search discussions for "mixer".

hmmmm, i am up to it. too lazy to search - enlighten me.

Except it's a month away ... http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/18956-may-2010-se-mixer

rangersfan: "gvmt - almost by definition - is not going to give us the internet."

That'd be a great statement, except that it did.

Alternatively, can you explain how the Internet was created in your mind?

oksy, inonsds - i will plsy slong. despite al gore's assertions (maybe urban legend), i think a lab of syatems analysts at mit. however, if your being cute about gvmt FUNDING then bango, you win. big difference in my world though.

in my mind. lmfao.

i really am going to learn to type better, i promise. think i am fat-fingured ever since rhino came thumping into the room...

Bottom Line, If 50% of the country is not paying an income tax then 50% of the country is not paying their fair share of the tax burden.

pres- silly comment. Jose Padilla is a U.S. citizen. The shoe bomber was a month after 9-11, before the military tribunal infrastructure was set up to handle this.

old chinese proverb, when you drink the water remember the spring.

RF, virtually all computer science university research is government funded, much of it under a defense program called DARPA. What exactly is the difference between the government funding a research lab inside vs outside a university? It's not as if non-university government research is being done by politicians, it's the same set of folks.

In any case, the Internet's development was much more closely done at the research lab itself. The "father of the Internet", Vint Cerf, in fact left his post as a professor at Stanford to go to DARPA where he could better develop the Internet. The model of DARPA has since changed in that now they are primarily a funding agency only, but the fact remains that this research is being enabled by government policy and spending.

The truth of the matter is that no private company or citizen is going to fund the research because there is no direct upside. If you think otherwise, then pull out your checkbook. You wouldn't mind missing a season of Rangers would you?

And if you think this is a thing of the past, think again. Google's research was DARPA- and NASA-funded. How is it related to defense? Who knows, but rest assured that ever computer science grant request is written to tangentially have some stretched use for defense, because that's the way the game has to be played. I can assure you the professors and students don't actually think for minute about making the actual research defense-related.

inonada, i already conceded that the gvmt is in the business (in a big way) of funding science for defense-related purposes. and to suggest that universities dont have a huge source of financing on the private side is just plain wrong. alumni, endowments et al provide the basis for much of the private universities budgets.

my point is that academics and the private sector break the ground in developing these new technologies and innovations - mainly fueled by the profits they derive from these innovations. yes, there are a few noble gents and ladies out there toiling away for the benefit of mankind, but by far the majority are in it to win it.

and private industry (ever hear of a thing called venture capital) and silicon valley has been a launchpad for many of these applications both in the world of technology and medical advancements - all fueled by rhino's roe models.

academics? like those at the u of texas, michigan, va, wa, berkeley, etc? you think berkeley had nothing to do with the internet?

you think private institutions such as cornell/rockefeller don't receive gov't aid? well, recently they've received a lot less, but over the years many of those academics breakthroughs have been funded through gov't grants.

and RS, the bottom line is that the fact that so many people aren't paying taxes indicates that we have a huge number of truly poor people in this country.

Me thinks NIH is govt run and is the driver for every basic medical research including homeoboxes which determine where limbs start to grow. Saw a fish with a frog limb growing out it's back. Your govt $ at work!

"Somewhereelse: The pass through corporation -- which has corporate entity ('limited liability') rights but is taxed as if it were a partnership -- is just a legalized tax scam."

Financeguy, your logic has now become circular...

You might not like the truth, but its pretty clear that single taxation through corps occurs all the time, and adding another tax layer is, in fact, double taxation.

The part of MIT that worked on the intertubes in the early days is actually a joint venture between govt. and MIT, set up in the early years of the Cold War, and located not at MIT but at Hanscom Air Force Base.

If you have to choose one or the other, it's fundamentally a government operation, with close ties to MIT.

It's not an unusual arrangement.

"pres- silly comment. Jose Padilla is a U.S. citizen. The shoe bomber was a month after 9-11, before the military tribunal infrastructure was set up to handle this."

I never mentioned Jose Padilla. Padilla was the dirty bomber. The 20th hijacker was Zacarias Moussaoui, and he was not a US citizen. Under Bush, Moussaoui was prosecuted in federal civilian court after the military tribunals were established and is currently serving ina supermax prison in COlorado.. a civilian prison.

"Bottom Line, If 50% of the country is not paying an income tax then 50% of the country is not paying their fair share of the tax burden."

What about all the hedge fund managers who only pay 15% in tax? Are they paying their fair share?

I missed where this thread started talking about university research grants instead of poor people not paying taxes...

But from what I've seen at my engineering schools, the bulk of the research grants come from DOD, NSF, NIH, etc. DOD grants are not necessarily for defense, but they almost always have defense applications, such as understanding fluid mechanics or heat transfer(required for aerodynamics), or solving computational problems ( for example, controls or some other field.) I think that NSF grants are more pure science orientated but based around increasing knowledge in general, but I'm not positive on that.

The government funds these projects because it helps to develop new technology and it is low risk but high payoff for them to invest the money in a project that has a large chance of failing and can take years to even get preliminary results. It is very cheap to fund grads and post-docs compared to a real employee at a company. Plus they'll work many more hours.

Also there is the benefit of training the future engineers and scientists of the country which is crucial. That's why it pains me to see many of my fellow grads getting their PhDs and having to leave the country soon when they cannot find a job and their visas expire. IN my department right now I would say that no more than 20% of the PhD students are american, which is fine, except they have to leave the US if they can't find a job.

Other funding sources could be on the city or state level.

More recently I've seen more private grants, for example development work for AFrica using funds from Bill Gates or from the UN which funds research but does not necessarily pay for graduate students to get their degrees. Also GE is investing a bunch of money in NYC public schools some of which Columbia is getting. I'm not sure what their motivation is other than the appearance of truly wanting to help education, which could be true, I don't really know.

But I don't think that the universities are using their endowment money to pay for research. Possibly for tuition for some students but I don't think that they're funding individual projects that require buying equipment. It's probably a whole different story in the Liberal Arts though.

What exactly is a taxpayer's "fair share"? Could someone quantify that. As for the screen name, I'm ready to concede the 2010 season.

> What about all the hedge fund managers who only pay 15% in tax? Are they paying their fair share?

Bogus question. There aren't any hedge fund managers in this town who only pay 15% of their income...

HEdge fund managers only pay the federal government 15% since they pay capital gains tax instead of income tax.

"fair share"? That sounds Socialist. IS Riversider a Socialist?

> HEdge fund managers only pay the federal government 15% since they pay capital gains tax instead of
> income tax.

You're now changing the story (now its just federal taxes, when city state can be 10%!) and you're still wrong! Only a portion of their income gets that rate (the portion that goes in the fund).

And, while I do agree it shouldn't be the case, it still just a part of the overall burden... which is STILL higher for rich folks.

We have a progressive system, and many folks pay NEGATIVE taxes. End of story.

aboutready/mmarquez110: to be fair, rangersfan distinguished between government funding of technology development (which he acknowledges) and the actual process of vetting ideas and bringing successful products to market, to improve our lives.

But in fact the govt. is far more involved than simply funding them, and are founding and ongoing partners, in effect, in incubator-type research centers, along with universities and private businesses large and small.

I wonder if the Federal government ever shares in patent ownership and financial profit from resulting technology; I doubt it. I know universities are falling over themselves to derive such patents, and I've heard that Columbia has its hands in a bunch of the patents that are involved in the iPhone.

alan, is this you? http://www.alanhart.net/about-alan-hart/

se10024, decidedly not!

why thanks alan, that was fairly noble of you. maybe not as closed minded as originally feared.

"We have a progressive system, and many folks pay NEGATIVE taxes. End of story."

Only if you include ONLY federal income taxes. Everyone, in fact, pays some combination of payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, and/or income taxes, at the Federal, State, and/or local level. On BALANCE we have a flat tax system, which actually became more regressive under bush.

And I love the new GOP talking point. Lower taxes on the rich, raise them on the poor and lower middle class. Sure fire way to win elections.

So jason is ok that half of US households pay nothing in federal income taxes toward the operation of our federal government. Just silly.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/wealth-graphic2.jpg

minimum wage = 7.25 15 K a year. how much income tax do you want someone to pay at that level?

"I wonder if the Federal government ever shares in patent ownership and financial profit from resulting technology; I doubt it. I know universities are falling over themselves to derive such patents, and I've heard that Columbia has its hands in a bunch of the patents that are involved in the iPhone."

The patents are owned by the university, even if the research is fully government-funded. The government believes that this is the best way to deliver the innovation to the public, hence the policy.

The universities used to have varied policies on the licensing of the patents, but the Stanford model has become most dominant because of Stanford's particular success well above and beyond all other universities. Stanford took a particularly liberal approach in their licensing. For example, Google's license cost was something on the order of 1% ownership of the company plus some small royalties. A third of that goes right back to the inventors. Other schools used to want significant amounts, like say 10% ownership or 10% of revenues. Then, they saw that they'd end up with no money nor recognition while Stanford was getting craploads, so they changed their tunes over time.

"What about all the hedge fund managers who only pay 15% in tax? Are they paying their fair share?"

That's great populist angst, but most hedge fund managers don't give a rat's ass. In order to get that treatment, the holding needs to be long-term holding of stocks. Most hedge fund managers are not long-term holders of stocks. The tax change would mainly hit private equity and venture capital.

Last year, Congress lined up 5 hedge fund managers for questioning, and this was one of the issues brought up. Of the 5, 4 of them said, "yeah, I've got no problem with taxing all carried interest as ordinary income". The last said "I got no problem with it, but if you're going to do that, don't single out hedge funds and private equity, the equity stake of anyone who gets an equity stake for running something instead of putting up capital, like the chef running a restaurant, should be treated the same". Boy, that raised the ire of the Congressmen. He saw where that was going and said, "like I said earlier, it ain't gonna affect me taxwise, do what you want, I'm just saying be consistent, but do whatever you want".

Consider how much campaign money Congress raises from Wall Street. I doubt this will change.

> "We have a progressive system, and many folks pay NEGATIVE taxes. End of story."

> Only if you include ONLY federal income taxes. Everyone, in fact, pays some combination of payroll > taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, and/or income taxes, at the Federal, State, and/or
> local level. On BALANCE we have a flat tax system, which actually became more regressive under bush.

Incorrect. Yet another voter buys the ACORN / Democratic Party propaganda hook line and sinker.

We have a progressive tax system, folks pay a larger share of income as income grows when you include all taxes.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/04/top-400-taxpayers/

"• Only 220 of the top 400 were in the top marginal tax bracket.

• Average tax rate of the 400 = 16.6% — the lowest since the IRS began tracking the 400 in 1992.

• Minimum annual income to make the top 400 = $138.8 million.

• Top 400 reported $137.9 billion in income; they paid $22.9 billion in federal income taxes.

• 81.3% of income was from capital gains, dividends or interest. Salaries and wages? Just 6.5%."

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/04/tax-burden-on-various-americans/

“There is no question that the wealthy pay a higher overall tax rate than any other group. That is an American tradition. But there is also no question that their tax rates have fallen more than any other group’s over the last three decades. The only reason they are paying more taxes than in the past is that their pretax incomes have risen so rapidly — which hardly seems a great rationale for a further tax cut.”

Yes, as I said, we have a progressive system.

The ACORN/Democratic Party propaganda machines have been lying to the people.

Eddie, why do you hate progress?

swe, you're joking? or you've misplaced your reading glasses?

"there is no question that their (the wealthy's) tax rates have fallen more than any other group's over the last three decades."

highly progressive.

The argument for taxing the "rich" is so distorted. Eveyone talks about the top quintile 0.1% and then use that to hit earners making just over $200k. Talk about bait and switch.

> swe, you're joking? or you've misplaced your reading glasses?

AR, do you need a dictionary?

> "there is no question that their (the wealthy's) tax rates have fallen more than any other group's
> over the last three decades."
> highly progressive.

Uh, thats not what progressive means.

> Eddie, why do you hate progress?

Alan, higher taxes and slower growth... is, uh... progress?

swe, I know damn well the various meanings ofprogressive.

No, higher taxes and stronger growth is progress.

The problem is that many conservatives know no other truth than higher taxes = slower growth. Your scenario, under this axiom, alanhart, is not even viable for discussion. Unfortunately, your definition of progress is spot-on.

alan just seems bitter about people who make a lot more money than he does. He tries to cloak his desire to soak them with taxes with the idea that it is better for society, when in reality such a class warfare system harms everyone.

hey---i thought you left for the front? when do you go?

Somewhereelse is correct.

A progressive tax is a tax by which the tax rate increases as the taxable base amount increases

No, I'm just bitter that I won't get a free college education when I get back from my 4-year tour of Afghanistan, as you will.

In 2005 the Walton family (heirs to the founder of Walmarts) had wealth of about $90 billion. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet together had about the same ($46 billion and $44 billion). The bottom 40% of the population -- 120 million Americans -- had about $95 billion combined.

3 families have twice as much wealth as 40% of the population. The richest is composed of people who've contributed nothing to the country but being born.

But some commenters on this thread think that the problem with America today is that we overtax the rich. Does freedom, in their view, also require bringing back slavery?

Inequality in this country has vastly increased in the last several decades, to the detriment of all of us. Class warfare, indeed, harms everyone. But it is not class warfare to pursue greater equality, liberty, and freedom by reducing the freeloading and skimming at the top. Or to seek to reclaim the benefits, in health, happiness, solidarity and even purely economic wellbeing of a more equal republic.

Wilkinson, for example, has demonstrated that among the developed countries, greater inequality is associated with lower life expectancy, higher child mortality, assorted diseases, less reported happiness, less political participation and a host of other ills, with the US, as the least equal of the developed countries often off the charts in how poor its results are. The poor suffer more, but even the rich are worse off on most of these measures in unequal countries.

Finaceguy arguing for income redistribution. Speaks to equality of outcome and not equal opportunity.