Junction

+1

This might be the best political thread I've seen. Great debate without resorting to antiquated name calling. Love it.

Have to disagree.

Sure there are plenty of people in power or that have money that get greedy and screw people's lives up.

But so does someone on welfare that walks into a convenient store, shoots the clerk, and takes the money.

What makes it worse is when lawmakers try to help people they don't have a clue about. How does president obama know what a poor family with four kids needs?

You help someone out by getting them a job. Getting them education. Helping them get the tools they need to support their family.

You create jobs by lowering the tax rate on corporations. That way, instead of outsourcing they create jobs in America; because they can afford it with the tax savings. Corporate tax rate is 30-35%. Should be around 10-12%.

It's really simple economics.

Unfortunately, our president doesn't comprehend simple economics.

Sure there are people like the Enron folks that screw thousands of people over but they are the exception, not the rule.

It's par for the course for someone under the poverty line to commit a crime. Sorry that's the truth.

Disagree away!

But...

The monetary difference between robbing a convenient store (or the cumulation of every armed robbery in the world) and the losses incurred during the global financial crisis should be obvious enough as to it not being necessary for me to elaborate on... Suffice it to say that folks didn't lose their entire nest eggs in a 7/11 style stick-up.

The impact of a convenient a store robbery = isolated
The impact malfeasance, graft, greed, etc. of multi-national corporations, politicians, financial institutions, etc. = globally devastating

You say people need jobs, education, and tools to support their family... I agree. To be fair this administration released a report you may find interesting (Creating Pathways to Opportunity), which touches on those very concerns (targeted jobs training programs and expanding Pell Grants to name a couple points). President Obama also has the American Jobs Act which hasn't gone anywhere. Plans and proposals only take one so far; if the order of the day is obstruction, even the best of ideas will die on the floor.

You want 10-12% corporate tax rates? The following articles were taken from the Wall Street Journal and Time, respectively...

WASHINGTON—U.S. companies are booking higher profits than ever. But the number crunchers in Washington are puzzling over a phenomenon that has just come into view: Corporate tax receipts as a share of profits are at their lowest level in at least 40 years.

Total corporate federal taxes paid fell to 12.1% of profits earned from activities within the U.S. in fiscal 2011, which ended Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That's the lowest level since at least 1972. And well below the 25.6% companies paid on average from 1987 to 2008.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204662204577199492233215330.html

...But there is another source of federal revenues that receives less attention: corporate income taxes. According to the Wall Street Journal’s recent study of Congressional Budget Office numbers, corporations are paying an effective rate of 12.1%, the lowest in at least 40 years. So why are some of the biggest and most powerful entities in our society getting away with paying so little? The story is complicated, but the biggest factor in the recent collapse in corporate tax receipts appears to be a set of tax breaks built into recent stimulus efforts.

In 2010 and 2011, companies were allowed to deduct the full cost of the purchases of new equipment, while normally these costs would be expensed over several years. In 2012, this deduction will go down to 50% and be eliminated altogether thereafter, causing the effective tax rate to return to roughly the 25.6% average effective tax rate corporations paid since the late 1980s, according to CBO forecasts.

Of course that 25.6% number is still quite a bit lower than the nominal tax rate of 35%, the highest in the world behind only Japan. So why aren’t corporations paying what the law says they should? Certainly, some are. According to Howard Barnet, a tax attorney with Carter Ledyard & Milburn, it all depends on what kind of corporation you are. He says that large, multinational corporations have many more strategies available to them to reduce tax burdens than smaller, domestic firms do. Pile on top of that all the tax goodies that politicians like to lavish on their favorite industries like tech, manufacturing, and real estate and, “it’s a small subset of domestic companies left holding the bag,” Barnet says.

Read more: http://business.time.com/2012/02/06/the-corporate-tax-rate-is-at-its-lowest-in-decades-is-big-business-paying-its-fair-share/#ixzz22M7jzRbP

America, F#*k Yeah!