religion is what prevents the poor from murdering the rich...
Napoleon..

working poor ?...are you baming Bush for that one too...listen...If you're a grown man working for peanuts...I think you fugged up somewhere...

A real inconvenient truth
By Warren Stephens
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 9:38 AM HST



http://westhawaiitoday.com/articles/2008/10/15/opinion/columns/column01.txt
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A real inconvenient truth
By Warren Stephens
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 9:38 AM HST
I have never written a column in one of our newspapers and really had no intention of doing so, but after watching the debate last Tuesday night I feel compelled to put some facts to paper so that readers can make an informed decision about this election. Given the dearth of facts in the current debate, this may not be my only foray into writing for publication. I want to make sure I make the proper disclosures about who I support in this presidential campaign. I am the co-finance chair for Arkansas for the John McCain campaign and an ardent free market capitalist. I believe social issues are best left to individuals and while I have strong beliefs about them, I will not interject them into my choice of a candidate. Economics and taxes, on the other hand, are NOT subject to interpretation. Supply and demand curves are real and they work. This column is an attempt to put facts in front of you, particularly as they relate to taxes and the "fairness" of our tax code.

Sen. Barack Obama is proposing tax increase for small businesses and the top 5 percent of tax paying Americans. He says that he will give 95 percent of Americans a tax cut and he and Sen. Joe Biden say it is fair and the "patriotic duty" of the top 5 percent to pay more. Again, full disclosure, I am in the top 5 percent and probably the top 1 percent. The facts, as to who pays taxes, paint a different picture and, for whatever reason, Sen. McCain will not use them. The tables below really say it all:


(gotta to to web-site to see)
These statistics are from the U.S. Treasury Department and they reveal a startling and seldom talked about FACT. The top 1 percent of wage earners in this country pay 39 percent of the income taxes paid, while the top 5 percent pay 60 percent. That's right, 60 percent of all income taxes are paid by the same people on whom Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden want to RAISE taxes. What is more, the percentage paid by this group has increased since the so-called Bush tax cuts. This is a real inconvenient truth for the Obama campaign.

In 2006, the lower 50 percent of wage earners had 12.5 percent of the income and paid 3.0 percent of federal income taxes. The 2006 statistics also reveal that the top 5 percent of U.S. taxpayers paid $616 billion in federal income taxes which was MORE than the remaining 95 percent of taxpayers' total of $408.1 billion. Our system could hardly be more weighted to having the wealthy pay more, yet that is precisely what Sen. Obama proposes. I will reluctantly accept (for now) that in our society the top wage earners will pay more (in percentage terms) in taxes, but if Sen. Obama wants to raise taxes, he should say so. As The Wall Street Journal has been saying, you cannot give a tax cut to people who do not pay taxes. Sen. Obama's plan is a redistribution of income from those who pay taxes to those who do not. It is nothing more than the granddaddy of all welfare plans and voters need to know it. For Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden to couch this issue as one of fairness and a "patriotic duty" is an attempt to deceive the American public as to the facts.

I am not afraid of Sen. Obama becoming president because he is a bad person. Rather I am concerned about his policies and their effect on our economy both in the short and long term. Higher tax rates will discourage investment and capital formation and that is not good for anyone.

Warren Stephens is president and CEO of Stephens Inc., one of the largest investment companies off Wall Street, and an owner of Stephens Media, which publishes newspapers in nine states, including this paper in Hawaii.
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You can't blame Bush for the failure of the last month. Look to those running the Fannie May and Freddie Mack, research/ google it. And McCain (along with few others, NOT O) three yrs ago tried to alert, work on it. They were shot down.

Who caused it? Who had their hands into the pockets the deepest?? Why Mr. O and his camp!
Which is the reason financial markets are in turmoil.

Obama took more money from Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac lobbyists in his three years in the Senate than all but one of the rest of members of Congress took in the past nine years. BB

Edit: Gio, GREAT thread, post by the way.

Beat them up and watch failure - plus no free ride anymore......(anyway) hummm ... maybe the thought of saying thanks and understanding all that is given and not crowding more - to prevent disappearance of Mr. Big in the first place, would make ALOT more sense!

I don't get that either, it seems as those they are under some kind of spell.

I think I do blame Bush actually. The biggest reason for the lowering standard of living for the working poor is the fact that there are twelve million people here illegally who work for substantially lower wages than most can afford.

And Bush should have done something about that years ago

It so simple that the tax cuts that mostly benefited the wealthy did not work. WIth the stock market tanking they lost far more money than they gained by the one sided tax cuts, even the rich should be looking for change right now. I am so greatfull as everyone should be that Bush couldnt tie social security to the stock market. We realy need to be thankfull to the Dems for that

President Clinton Signing NAFTA is what did it to start, other than that, I agree with your post - just started with someone else, and grew from there. BB

well lets be honest it was a republican agenda that created NAFTA and clinton signed it. It was a republican house and senate and it was for the benefit of fortune 500 companies.

READ Obama's Social Security Whopper
September 20, 2008
Updated: September 22, 2008

He tells Social Security recipients their money would now be in the stock market under McCain's plan. False

Analysis
In our "Scaring Seniors" article posted Sept. 19 we took apart a claim in an Obama-Biden ad that McCain somehow supported a 50 percent cut in Social Security benefits, which is simply false. Then, on Saturday Sept. 20, Sen. Barack Obama personally fed senior citizens another whopper, this one a highly distorted claim about the private Social Security accounts that McCain supports.


What Obama Said


In Daytona Beach, Florida, Obama said in prepared remarks released by the campaign:

Obama, Sept. 20: And I'll protect Social Security, while John McCain wants to privatize it. Without Social Security half of elderly women would be living in poverty - half. But if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week. Millions would've watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes. Millions of families would've been scrambling to figure out how to give their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, the secure retirement that every American deserves. So I know Senator McCain is talking about a "casino culture" on Wall Street - but the fact is, he's the one who wants to gamble with your life savings.

That's untrue. All current retirees would be covered by exactly the same Social Security benefits they are now under what the Obama campaign likes to call the "Bush-McCain privatization plan," which Bush pushed for unsuccessfully in 2005.


Who Would Have Been Affected


As the White House spelled out at the time, on page 5 of the document titled "Strengthening Social Security for the 21st Century," released in February 2005:

Bush Plan: Personal retirement accounts would be phased in. To ease the transition to a personal retirement account system, participation would be phased in according to the age of the worker. In the first year of implementation, workers currently between age 40 and 54 (born 1950 through 1965 inclusive) would have the option of establishing personal retirement accounts. In the second year, workers currently between age 26 and 54 (born 1950 through 1978 inclusive) would be given the option and by the end of the third year, all workers born in 1950 or later who want to participate in personal retirement accounts would be able to do so.

Nobody born before Jan. 1, 1950 could have participated, and anyone born on that date would be 58 years old now. The earliest possible age for receiving Social Security retirement benefits is 62, for early retirement at reduced benefits. Full retirement age is currently 66, and scheduled to go up to age 67 in coming years.

It is certainly true that the stock market carries risks, as recent events remind us. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down nearly 17 percent for this year, for example, and despite gains in other years it is still barely above where it was at the start of 2000. But historically there have also been rewards for those who make diversified investments and hold for long periods. When Obama spoke, the Dow Jones average still stood 305 percent higher than it had at the start of the 1990's.


Disappearing nest eggs?


Also worth noting here:

The private accounts would have been voluntary. Anybody fearful of the stock market's risk could simply stay in the current system.


Obama's reference to "casino culture," disappearing "nest eggs" and gambling with "your life savings" are also misleading exaggerations. Only a little under one-third of any workers' total Social Security taxes could have been invested (a maximum of 4 percent of taxable wages, out of the total 12.4 percent now paid, split equally between worker and employer.)

Correction, Sept. 22: Our original story incorrectly said the rate was 15.3 percent, but this figure included Medicare taxes. We also said what would have gone into private accounts would have been just over one-fourth of Social Security taxes, but the true figure is closer to one-third.


Speculation in individual stocks would not have been permitted. Workers would have had a choice of a few, broadly diversified stock or bond funds.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_social_security_whopper.html

---- end copy ---- (Just telling it like it is) BB

I never said it was righteous...I'm just stating what I believe to be true...

Do you read what you post? what made america great was corperate responsability and a pact between the rich and the other classes were all could prosper. Since things have strayed from the old ways of business everyone has suffered Its realy time to wake up.

The working poor that I am talking about are the 40% of Americans that Republicans seem to be getting down on for not paying taxes? WTF?

These are the people are all around you, in LOW PAYING JOBS!

Just look at the businesses around you. I would bet it is mostly retail, restaurants, Target and Walmarts.

Motorola USED TO BE the top employer in Arizona.
They sold out and have moved most of their once HIGH PAYING jobs overseas and to Mexico.

The TOP EMPLOYER in Arizona now is WALMART.

Tax breaks for the wealthy is the wrong thing to do.

Even John McCain OPPOSED Bush when he implemented his tax cuts for the wealthy. McCain made the same arguments that Obama is making today.

I didn't know we were posting our income on here...

such nice people here

IMO I think THEN THAT was the start of this New World Order or North American Union that is being talked about.

Look into the USA having it........ bad news.

AND under O, it gets way worse (maybe a Global Domination scheme). BB

Its a corperate take over of the government. We are so screwed.

Don't go there, just yet. There still might be hope with the right party in the office. And it is not BO!

chuckls to myself your so right about makeing history but who is angry? Do you think the economic policies of the last 8 years have worked? I am more amused than angry I just cant imagine how any reasonable person could wisht to "stay the course" on the titanic

heartless I think they call it. :(

from your mouth to Gods ears Miss Widow...lol