For RT
 

2. Best. mugshot. ever.

A Question of Balance
 

bullshit. you say my in law's burb is dogtown, and I got married for a shot at their money.

Well, I hope down below, because he's a bit blobby all around. If he's not hung like Sunny's new squeeze I'd feel like an ass for getting left for a doughboy. Not that I don't feel like an ass anyway for getting left for a doughboy.

A Question of Balance
 

The soft bigotry of low expectations at work. All you've ever wanted was enough ripple to stay comfortably numb to the onset of cirrhosis-related retardation.

You're getting there. Keep up the good work.

A Question of Balance
 

Oh, you... Fuck. I... can't... muster a comeback...

ITS NOT A UNIBROW!

It's not the size of the wave, its the motion of the ocean......at least that's the cliche the phottoshopping Jewess uses with Hank so he doesn't feel so.....inadequate. ly. small. Size wise. as. well. as. otherwise.

A Question of Balance
 

Keep telling yourself that.

just say no
 

I can't tell you how much it pleases me to see y'all turning the long knives on each other. :D

I sincerely hope it lasts. :P

S_A_M

just say no
 

I appreciate your miss placed glee but the bottom line is I am a realist, and the history of my posts show that. I have called out the Harryette Miers debacle for what it is, i.e. 2 + 2 does = 4. I highly doubt you could find a post where I asserted that it equals 3. Unlike certains posters from the land of delusional leftivism.

just say no
 

Do you know how sometimes, when your sphincter is really tight, you produce a very slender stool?

S_A_M

Comity of Errors
 

I can't be an apologist for the AMT. It's a ridiculous construct which should be done away with immediately. If the G isn't happy with the fact that tax breaks allow certain people to pay less than their "fair share" of taxes, which is what the AMT purports to correct, then the tax breaks should be eliminated or ceilings should be put in place.

Historically, tax policy has distinguished between taxes on net income and other types of tax. I don't think the rule always makes sense, particularly in the case of allowing a deduction for state income and property taxes but not sales tax.

As for taxation at the state level, the states haven't chosen to offer a deduction for federal income tax and the Eleventh Amendment prohibits the federal government from interviening in that decision, as well as the Anti-Injunction Act.

just say no
 

For efficiency's sake, many years back, I had elective surgery to install a state of the art colostomy bag waste disposal system, so I am having a tough time understanding what you are getting at but I am betting it is missing the mark. sts.

Comity of Errors
 

We've discussed dividend taxation on the board a number of times. A tax on dividends is not double taxation at the individual level because it both corporations and individuals are separate taxpayers. Furthermore, tax breaks for divindends have a regressive impact because they favor income of those who rely more on wealth than labor for their income.

If the federal government were to decide to try to better integrate corporate and shareholder taxation, a more appropriate response would be to allow the corporation a dividends-paid deduction. That would put dividends, a payment for the use of capital on more of a par with wages, which are payment for the use of labor, and interest, which is payment for the use of money.

It would also provide for a more equitable distribution of the overall tax burden, without favoring one source of value over another.

If you want to discuss the estate tax with me, then stop using offensive and misleading rhetorical devices and we'll talk.

Comity of Errors
 

2!

Isn't state sales tax deductible as of last year (for WA state sales tax it was and is) or is limited to some/certain states' sales taxes?

The Bush Administration appointed an advisory group on tax policy. They issued two different proposals a couple of days ago. The elimination of mortgage and state tax deductions was a common feature of both proposals, although there were some small differences between the two.

Comity of Errors
 

I disagree and stand by the double taxation. Of course, you are self interested in the perpetuation of more taxes so I will take your comments with a grain of salt. Additionally, the demo party is interested in tearing down corporate america and undermining investment to allow for the eventual state appropriation of private industry when the Clintons' RedChinese handlers call in their chits. Sad.

As for rhetorical devices, I support life and its sanctity as directed by the babyjesi and will not be bowed by the culturalists of death wimpy protestations of tender feelings. When the left stops supporting a culture of death via death taxes and forced killings of disabled people then I willl stop rhetorically calling them to task for their evils.

Comity of Errors
 

But wasn't that distinction obviated by the "Hey My Buddies in Texas Pay Sales Not Income Tax Act of 2004"?

A Question of Balance
 

You're worrying about the rising cost of private schools, you wear $140 shirts, you're a DINK household, and you say you're not rich? Try running that past the cleaning crew in your office or the manger at your grocery store and see what they think.

The truth is that there is such a wide (and growing) gap between the haves and the have-nots in this country that there is hardly anything left of the middle class any more. The middle class used to be the cops and the office managers, and the average lawyers, who could afford a modest house and maybe two cars, one used, and possibly a two-week vacation every year. These people are almost all gone now. They haven't disappeared completely, but they are shrinking rapidly as a demographic.

Comity of Errors
 

Washington State got a benefit too. Perhaps that was a nod to my continued effourts here to educate the ignorant nattering nabobs here, but given the blue tint of this state I doubt it. Way to unfairly criticise the President no matter what he does though. The consistent bias of the left is at least heartening in its consistency.

Comity of Errors
 

Generally, taxing something is considered a disincentive to it happening. Those who wish to stop taxing death would appear to want to promote it the most.

What is it that Republicans have against the living?

Comity of Errors
 

Rubs to religious inconography in response to tax post: 1 (arguably 2, with the use of the plural)

Clinton references: 1

References to Democratic party: 3

References to death/evil: 4

Substantive response to double taxation: 0

Not bad. Sounds like you've hit the mark pretty accurately, Wonk.

http://www.reality-syndicate.com/gue...ges/target.gif

A Question of Balance
 

I did and I am not sure the quality of life is not better for those people.



No, that is not the truth. Try getting out of your insular upper middle class suburban gated enclave and mingle with the real people, the middle class that does exist and maybe you would learn something. I live and socialise amongst the middle class, the working class, and you could not be further from the truth. On a daily basis I go into the worst neighbourhoods in my city and offer educational hope and social justive and there is a thriving culture of opportunity and ownership in our midst, but its not in the demos interest to promote it lest voters stray from the plantation. It is nice to see you perpetuating the lies of the Sharpton/Jackson/Pelosi wing of the looney left though.

Comity of Errors
 

A sales tax deduction was enacted as part of the Jobs Creation Act.

Comity of Errors
 

The demos are celebrating death by a confiscatory act of oppression on the survivors. That is the evil. The Rs support the living, i.e. the survivors.

Comity of Errors
 

Right. I always get that name mixed up.

Comity of Errors
 

What does it feel like to be consumed with bias and hate?

Comity of Errors
 

So its a survivors tax, then, not a death tax.

Here I thought the Dems were going to destroy death, and got all excited.

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

Comity of Errors
 

It is a tax predicated on death. Of course the tax attorneys and accountants support it out of self interest, and as a result the death of hardworking entreprenuers becomes a celebratory event for them. Much like the state killing of Terri Schiavo.

Sad.

A Question of Balance
 

I live in a "middle class" community. My neighbor one side is a contractor and my neighbor on the other side is a car salesman. The guy a couple doors down works for an amousement company and sets up, services those blow up moonwalk things for kids' birthday parties.

These people have houses that are half-empty because they can't afford to furnish them fully. They shop at places like Wal-Mart and Target because they can't afford to go anywhere else. They take vacations every two or three years at most.

Why? because the only way they have of accumulating or building wealth is their home. They find themselves continually squeezed. I also see how quickly houses turn over, because all it takes is one little slip, like an unexpected medical emergency or a family member losing a job for their whole dream to come crashing down around them.

Refresh my recollection, please. Tell me again how I can just explain to them that if you don't have to pay taxes on dividends and the estate tax is eliminated, their lives will improve, even though they are about to lose the houses they can barely afford now because they won't be able to cut the nut without the mortgage interest deduction.

Comity of Errors
 

That's because it's really created very few jobs.

Comity of Errors
 

PLF, I think here we have the Irony POTY, yes?

Comity of Errors
 

True. A repeal of the estate tax would've coaxed that woman out of bed and, as Brother Frist diagnosed, gotten her just one Pilates class away from the cast of Stomp.

Need a ruling from other swift movers
 

Penske, Slave, is the Governator running or simply walking quickly away from Bush?

Need a ruling from other swift movers
 

Leesten, you little girly-girl, Da Terminator valks avay from no one! It is time for this GOP official to get out of Los Angeles -- which is MY backyard -- and stop closing down Sunset Boulevard!

http://www.wonkette.com/politics/DrudgeArnold.jpg

Need a ruling from other swift movers
 

Striding

Comity of Errors
 

I really can't believe the level of hate spewed at you. Is it ironic or sad that in a post with no content other than vile invective, a poster implies your posts lack substance?

A Question of Balance
 

I have been hearing this every year since Reagan got elected in 1980. I don't think it is true. I think it is just a political spin used by the left to still find criticism when the economy is growing. A way to find fault with capitalism when it is succeeding. The trick is like this: If I make $100 a year and you make $1000 dollars a year and each of our incomes goes up by ten percent then I make $110 and you make a 1100 a year. The gap between us has widened. The wealthier the economy the wider the gaps just because you are dealing with bigger numbers.

When they use these stats it implies that the rich are getting rich and the poor are getting poorer. That is not the case. The only stat that really has any significance is look to are every quartile of income and see if people are getting better off. As long as the prospects of the bottom fourth are getting better who cares how much the rich are getting. That is just political exploitation of people's envy.

As long as everyones incomes are rising who cares how much the rich are getting. Unless, of course, you can figure out a way to tax them without hampering growth so you can decrease the tax burden on the bottom half.

Why Republicans are Republican
 

TNR has a long article on the GOP detailing the new scramble for the Post-Bush era, improbably beginning with 3 years left in Bush's term.

An interesting read thoughout, with view of McCainiacs, and the ascendant thoughts of Gingrich. This in particular caught my eye, however.

• The demographics of the GOP also make a hard-right run tempting. Recently, pollster Tony Fabrizio has been asking Republican voters whether their most important goal "is to promote individual freedom by reducing the size and scope of government and its intrusion into the lives of its citizens" or "to promote traditional values by protecting traditional marriage and the life of the unborn." In his most recent survey, 34 percent of Republicans take the freedom position and 49 percent take the values position. "Every time I've stratified out the Republican Party, we've come up with roughly 45 to 50 percent of the party that falls into the category of being theocrats," he says. That's right, half of Republicans are Republicans not because they want to reduce the size of government but because of gay marriage and abortion. (And Fabrizio reports that the 49 percent is far more homogenous in its views than the 34 percent.) Becoming the king of that 49 percent in a time of conservative frustration with Bush and no dominant establishment candidate could pay dividends. The key is distinguishing oneself. "Prayer in school, abortion, gay marriage. What's the next thing? All those are old hat," says Fabrizio, who, it should be said, takes a dim view of this strategy. "What's it going to be, speaking in tongues?"

Let the parsing of the poll begin.

Gattigap

lat night I attended an open house at my kid's school. the Philosphy class went ahead as if it was just another class.

The topic was "Should evolution AND Creationism be taught in Biology Class." The fellow traveler my liberal district has empowered to attempt and brainwash my children, told us of Schools, as she put it, "in - well I'm sure you can guess in which states where they don't teach evolution at all, but only teach Creationism." Now i didn't call bullshit, but I don't think that true is it?

Anyway her impartial prompts kept coming back to be asking the one religous kid in the class "doesn't it violate separation of Church/ state to teach creationism?"

So i finally ask her "What was the purpose of the separation, and in partiucular in schools?" She says we don't want to force a religion on people and if we teach Jesus to a class that is 90% Christian it's not fair to the other 10%." So then i had her-
"But how is that different than teaching evolution to a class that includes this young man who doesn't want to hear it?"

Ole' Stalin had no answer.

A Question of Balance
 

Did I say I was middle class? No. I'm upper middle class. But thats not rich. I'm a few hundred grand a year away from rich, and that chasm is a huge one to bridge...

Two week vacation? I don't know anyone, rich or poor, who can swing that gig anymore.

How do you cure wealth disparity long term? You can't do it. Its impossible. Wealth disparity is a natural consequence of capitalism. Capitalism is our system. Is it imperfect? Yes, but what's the option? Wealth redistribution? That's socialism. "Progressive taxation" is a soft way of saying "force the better off to give money to the less well off.” Taxes pay for the state - for infrastructure, for minimum benefits such as welfare.

Taxes are not the social reengineering tool which the Left seems to think they are