The proposal is to eliminate the deduction for new home mortgages and to phase out the deduction for existing mortgages over five years.

A Question of Balance
 

Being productive? Excuse me while I blow the coffee out of my nose...

Most of the better paid of us work in jerk off gigs buttfucking regs, statutes and boilerplate... I haven't done a goddamned thing to beneg=fit humanity thru my job since my last pro bono case in 1997. The middle class is a pack of middlemen, and wwe feed off the productive, ccrossing their ts and dotting their " i"s. Hey, its a living, but don't call us all generally "prodcutive" jusst because we work. This is just some shit I do to get money to live my life. I could just as easily be a broker or a barber or a janitor. Like Ruben Carter, "Its my job, and I do it for pay, and whhen I'm done, I'd just as soon be on my way..."

Productive? Thats rich.

A Question of Balance
 

Home ownership is an illusory faux ideal. There are other investment vehicles that can be as worthwhile but for the heavty hand of paternalistic governmental favouritism. As soon as the mortgage deduction goes I am selling my house, renting the same or bigger for less than my mortgage interest currently and putting my equity into a swath of acreage in the hinterland, mortgage free, where I can set up my own nation-state, free of the oppressive forces of your leftist thugs, and based on unfettered Second and First Amendment principles and as well as the Universal Moral Code.

Except that, once again, the "engineering" isn't being removed; it's just a benefit shift. Witness the lower rate on dividends and interest and the lowering of the top rate by two percent under one of the two proposals.

A true elimination of the social engineering would result in a truly flat tax. One rate applied across the board to all accessions to wealth, from whatever source derived. The only deduction would not truly be a deduction, but a definition of trade and business income as being revenue less cost of goods sold.

Fitzgerald Poll
 

Notwithstanding the musical reference, based on this past weekend, my speed is on the upswing, so don't count me out yet.

A Question of Balance
 

A flat tax with no deductions of any kind or governmental incentivism would force millions of accountants and lawyers to actually have to find productive work, rather than churning paper to create and perpetuate government incented tax deferral and shelter schemes. That is the big fear here and just another boni to the whole concept of doing away with the tax code. Maybe we ship all these deadbeats to France. Bon voyage.

A major driver of this effort is eleimination or degradation of the AMT. To the extent that AMT is another artifical move away from the flat tax, this is a removal of engineering.

I'm on board with this. Where do we sign up?

The whole tax code is a kludge.

A Question of Balance
 

I got into a big fight with someone once over the Montana Freemen. He was an "America Love It Or Lump It" sort with a hot temper and I was a silly law student who thought that normal people understood the whole playing devil's advocate thing. He got really mad at me (in a restaurant) when I tried to explain to him what their position was (they don't want the benefits of our government, so they shouldn't have to pay taxes). Not saying it was right (because, you know, the Freemen are nuts), just explaining it.

I still have a fondness in my heart for the Freemen as a result of this encounter. Is it wrong to be amused when people get really really pissed off over stupid things?

My law school friend who was married to Mr Hot Temper later divorced him because he was verbally abusive to her.

A Question of Balance
 

Anything that you do that further defines and sharpens our legal system - whether it be contributing to new case law, or creating more bulletproof contracts, or defining a government's powers through a taxpayor suit - whatever - is a benefit to humanity, if only because so much complex social and economic interaction is only possible when we have certainty about what rules apply. You bring civilization to the world.

In short, your ability to find blow - or cheap TV's - or flat-front slacks - is predicated upon the system of letters of credit, which is predicated upon a system of enforcement and definition, which is predicated upon people like us working to parse and define every fucking word ever used in any and every combination through history.

Now, we'll link hands and sing "We are the World . . . "

A Question of Balance
 

So this means your repudiation of acknowledgement of my long past crush is now repudiated? Or vice versa?

A Question of Balance
 

Kumbayah not good enough for you?

A Question of Balance
 

You middle class? Excuse me while I reintroduce you to reality. You, Sebby, and most of the people on the board, are not the middle class. We are the rich.

I'm talking about the factory workers, truck drivers, computer techs, and grocery store managers who are the middle class.

Now... what were you saying?

A Question of Balance
 

Be fair, now. Very human trait. I bet there aren't three people here who wouldn't claim to occupy a centrist political position.

Even the barking moonbats want to think of themselves as moderates.

As long as we can see someone poorer than us, and then also see someone richer than us, we must be "the middle", right?

A Question of Balance
 

Which Bentley should I go for? Continental GT or Arnage?

I disagree. We are middle class. The new middle class is $75k to $250k. No, I'm not kidding.

My wife and I are both professionals, live in a nice area, in a fairly nice small, affordable home. Drive used cars.

We are OK. I ain't worried about paying the mortgage. But RICH? Not. Anywhere. Near. It.

Try living in California and owning a decent home in a good area on $100k. $100k is the new $50k. Fuck, the private school I will have to send the kid to for high school is already $25k.

The people you're describing as middle class are now "poor."

Or maybe I'm nuts. Its possible. But one thing I ain't is rich.

ETA: Upper middle class is $250k - $400k. Rich starts at $600k. Doing really nice is $400k to $600k.

ETA2: Numbers and cutoffs obviously differ if you're single and based on whether you have kids.

Soak the Rich
 

Free Markets are preferable because they bring the greatest good to the greatest amount of people. I like the idea of the flat tax because I think it would lead to more growth. However, I like the idea of taxing the rich more because like I said before, they derive less utility our of their money than a poor person. In addition, if you keep taxes low in the lower income levels that allows infant entrepeneurs a greater chance of succeeding.

The goal of the tax system should be to interfere with the economy as little as possible to allow growth. However, if you can get more of your tax dollars out of the rich (without further hampering growth) so much the better.

I don't think people in the bottom quartile of income should pay any income taxes.

Soak the Rich
 

I agree. problem is, your position - because it is entirely rational - is unmarketable.

Taxwonk for President in '08.

A Question of Balance
 

I guess you're right.

I suppose my perspective is skewed because, thanks to the riproaring success of my solo practice, I know for an absolute fact that I am the Poor and the mortgage interest deduction is about to become a non-issue for me.

But I'm not complaining.

A Question of Balance
 

How do you define class, by income or balance sheet? On income I may be rich, on balance sheet I know people with lower middle class incomes who are more fiscally healthy than me. But that is typical leftist propaganda, Ted Kennedy, Soros, Buffett and the rest of the elitists sit on their billion dollar fortunes and look to the hard working guy making a few hundred grand to foot the bill for their socialist delusions. What flavour is the kool-aid today?

A Question of Balance
 

I am a person of principle and moral clarity, I am not sure if that makes me a centrist or not. Certainly it excludes me from the left.

A Question of Balance
 

2. Mas o menos.

the Anti-Cheney.

(sort of)

Ah. That addresses my biggest concern. We could quibble about whether the transition should be longer, but it is the economic dislocation that seems to be biggest problem for me.

I don't have a lot of objections to getting rid of this deduction in this way, and if Bush wants to grab ahold of this third rail, I say, bless him.

A Question of Balance
 

3.

I thought the AMT helped move us much closer to a flat tax, since it gets rid of the effect of many of those deductions you are railing against. (Simple? No. Flatter? Yes.)

To some extent, true, but it has such a sharp and defined (and catastrophic) cut-in that it's not truly doing that job well. Tax rate plotting should yield gentle hills, not huge insurmountable cliffs.

A Question of Balance
 

According to the Statistics of Income Bulleting, for 2003, the last year for which data are available, taxpayer with between $100,000 and $200,000 accounted for 10% of all taxpayers. Taxpayers earning over $200K amounted to 2.8-2.95% of all taxpayers.

Like I said, you're rich.

A Question of Balance
 

Income or balance sheet?

A Question of Balance
 

Just curious, 'cuz I ain't a taxwonk - when they say "taxpayor", do they mean, people who paid taxes, or do they also mean to include the vast swath at the bottom who pay no taxes?

A Question of Balance
 

Are you still paying alimony to the first wife? I bet it takes her a long time to get the checks to the bank for cashing.

A Question of Balance
 

Income.

A Question of Balance
 

That was for taxable returns. If you add in the filers who don't pay taxes, then the percentage for the $100-200K bracket goes down to 6.8% and the number for over $200K is 1.9%

For RT
 

DeLay's mug shot.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Co...12p.vsmall.jpg

For RT
 

Motherfucking jackass. (Not you, ollie)

A Question of Balance
 

Alimony?!?! LOL! When I said my finishing kick was lethal I did not mean to infer that the lethality was limited to the oval. Scorched earth baby.

A Question of Balance
 

C'mon, that's skewed. I probably have a better balance sheet right now than Northwest Airlines, but I bet NWA can afford more expensive scotch and better hookers than I can.

Cash flow, baby.

A Question of Balance
 

Exactly. As Sebbie implied, income "rich" is illusory and will remain so if the patriotic freepeople's of this country allow the dimwits to demonise the hardworking entreprenuereal class with oppressive progressive taxation.

A Question of Balance
 

Yeah, I thought that might make your point even stronger.

For RT
 

the babyjesuschristsuperstar hates the hate.