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126.
August 20th, 2008 3:28 pm
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Post #119 - Upgoldmith,Did you grad-eate from a school or such? 'Cause it sure don't sound like it. Maybe you missed the day that your school marm talked about cyphering and such.I'll try to make this as simple as possible for you to understand: there is a correlation between tax rates and tax revenue, but it becomes an inverse correlation the higher the rates are raised. "Raising taxes" is the common expression. Keep in mind that this expression refers to the tax rates, not necessarily the revenue collected. Most people (sorry, Upgoldsmith) understand that raising rates beyond a certain level will not increase revenue and in fact, will result in much less revenue collected, as income generation will significanty fall. We've certainly reached that point with most corporate rates and with capital gains rates. We're pushing the limits on personal tax rates as well.So, you want to raise tax rates to "help the country"? I don't know who you think you're going to help, but you're certainly not going to help our government's coffers.
— MJH, indianapolis, IN
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127.
August 20th, 2008 3:28 pm
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Post #119 - Upgoldmith,I'll try to make this as simple as possible: there is a correlation between tax rates and tax revenue, but it becomes an inverse correlation the higher the rates are raised. "Raising taxes" is the common expression. Keep in mind that this expression refers to the tax rates, not necessarily the revenue collected. Most people (sorry, Upgoldsmith) understand that raising rates beyond a certain level will not increase revenue and in fact, will result in much less revenue collected, as income generation will significantly fall. We've certainly reached that point with most corporate rates and with capital gains rates. We're pushing the limits on personal tax rates as well.So, you want to raise tax rates to "help the country"? I don't know who you think you're going to help, but you're certainly not going to help our government's coffers.
— MJH, indianapolis, IN
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128.
August 20th, 2008 3:29 pm
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Have any of you read the actual legislation? Most endangered homeowners won't be able to qualify and by the time they complete, file, and process the actions needed to comply, they will have lost their homes to foreclosure. I'm sorry folfs, but this is not a top priority to the administration, since the Fannie's and the Freddies are going to require saving by the Government absorbing them into a Federal Program. Not to mention the rising likelyhood of large Bank defaults and outright closure and bankrupt protection. In this election year, We have seen the perfect storm of bad economic's, the Feds worse policy and stop-gap measures, and the shortages in the commodity markets compounded by a disparing stock market. Declining economies world wide are further erroding options and increasing pressures on our financial markets. It's time America, to lace up your boots and suck it up. The measures enacted by the Legislation will help few and only for another year or two at which point we will all be looking for some aid. Pay attention to the background clammering, because that's where all the real news is being shelved. Foreign markets are being affected by our excesses and suffering a decline of their prosperity as well. Start preparing for a few years of economic bad news, and don't expect any new adminstration to bail you out because the government is broke, busted, over-extended, and in general unable to help themselves much less We the People.
— p. buckman, monterey,ca
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129.
August 20th, 2008 3:29 pm
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Simplest fix of them all.The people who approved $300,000 mortgages for people making $35,000 a year? Put them in jail. Long sentences. The statutes? Fraud.The credit card company execs who let 19-year-olds get $5,000 of credit and then keep offering increases? They go to jail too.When you start holding accountable the people who came up with the scams that have brought us to this precipice, and then start locking them in little boxes with substandard food, substandard medical care and the very real threat of personal violence, you will MAGICALLY see all of this stuff NOT happen in the years to come.But you've got to get draconian with the scam artists.
— Alex, New Jersey
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130.
August 20th, 2008 3:54 pm
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"Lawmakers need to start crafting the next stimulus bill — without repeating the mistakes of the last one."??? What ???Here's my Stimulus Package: take health insurance and $100,000 from every sitting-pretty Baby Boomer couple out there and give it to a Millenial couple.
— G, Tucson, AZ
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131.
August 20th, 2008 3:55 pm
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Please understand: the root cause of the present crisis is giving too many people much more money than they could possibly pay back. This caused housing prices to rise astronomically which, in turn, helped sustain the fundamentally unsustainable bad lending -- i.e., delay the inevitable. Now housing prices are correcting back toward inevitable equilibrium relative to actual incomes and so a bunch of people find themselves sitting in houses they can't afford and/or stretching to the breaking point to pay off enormous debt. And so loans are going bad and people have little money left to spend. Ergo the current economy.This is indeed a tragedy of historic proportions. But the bleeding will not stop until housing prices get back down to long-standing historic levels relative to incomes and doing anything (such as using public money to keep hundreds of thousands of people or more in houses they can't afford) to prevent that will only prolong the agony, bail out those responsible for (and who profited from) the crisis, keep the mass of young first-time home buyers locked out of the American Dream, and pile still more national debt onto our children and grandchildren to pay off. It is economically misguided and morally reprehensible.Let us help those in housing they cannot afford into housing they can afford; and those in houses they can afford but for predatory loans into fair and reasonable loans so that they can stay. But let us not waste still more public money in a vain and misguided attempt to sustain the unsustainable.
— John P., Pleasanton, CA
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