Why Would Anyone Care About Our Opinion?
 

They Change
 

Y'know, when they first get to Washington most of the newbies sound pretty good. I saw a young freshman member of the Tea Party on Meet The Press last Sunday. He happens to be the youngest member of Congress, a 32-year old Army vet from Manteno, IL representing Chicago's southwest suburbs. He was a good-looking, logical, honest-sounding kid. I had a similar experience meeting our new freshman Congressman representing The Villages several weeks ago. Same impression. He looked good, said all the right things, seemed to have the country's best interests at heart, honestly discussed what he was seeing in Washington.

But what happens to all that talent after they're in the Congress for awhile? It doesn't take long before all the words they spew mean nothing. Their words and their thoughts are carefully crafted to be non-commital and designed so that later they can go in any direction, vote any way, make any political decision, and not be in conflict with words they uttered before. They begin to come across as slimy, untrustworthy and self-dealing. They no longer speak independently, but rather spew forth what is obviously the words their party and political handlers told them to say.

Would you trust your kids to the care of people like Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, Eric Cantor, Barney Frank, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi...should I go on? These are the leaders of our government.

But my question is moot, really. We do trust these people...not only for the care of our kids, but for the care of the entire country!

That's scary.

Repeated calls by cynical politicians have taken advantage of the ignorance of the public - particularly liberals. We hear the repeated call for higher corporation taxes, not realizing the the United States' tax system destroys the incentive to invest in the US. To start with the United States has one of the highest corporate income taxes at 38%. Other countries have far lower tax rates - China for example is 16%. This, unfortunately is only a part of the problem.

All countries tax the income a corporation makes from its operations within that country. The US taxes the earnings of Mercedes, BMW and Toyota on their earnings within the United States. Japan and Germany tax US corporations on the profit made by US corporations within their borders. The critical difference arises when these corporations bring their profits back to their home countries. The US taxes these repatriated profits at 38%. Other countries tax at a fraction of their normal tax rates, thereby encouraging repatriating profits and using them to grow the company in its home country or distribute them in dividends.

If you take an example of an American based company that has a new blockbuster product, one that will sell well worldwide and make a ton of money. The company has the choice of setting up the manufacturing operation in the US where profits will be taxed at 38% or in China where these profits will be taxes at 16%. If the company keeps the profits in China to pay for future product development, manufacturing and expansion, there are no additional taxes to be paid. Should this company make pretax profits of 1 billion in China, it would have $860,000,000 left in its coffers. If they made this much in the United State, there would be $620,000,000 remaining after taxes. If the profit were repatriated to the USA from China, the resultant available cash for future growth would be $520,000,000. 860 million or 520 million is the question. Company management has a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. There is no choice.

The next time you hear someone complain about outsourcing, remember that the United States' tax code forces responsible company management to do just that. Raising corporate taxes will simply drive more jobs out of this country.

Is there a law that our govenment must operate on a balanced budget? If so, then they must balance it! Where, Oh where, is Ronald Reagan when we need him!

No law. 37 states (if memory serves) have it in their STATE constitutions that the STATE budget has to be balanced...

But Reagan was pilloried for presiding over a HUGE increase in the deficit. Granted he was working with a Democrat House (and a GOP Senate).

lateral arabesque at work again!!!!

How about the subject of the thread? How about a personal opinion....Not link point and counter point...and , dare I say it, address the subject as an affected citizen...not just the party auto defense mechanism.

You should all know by now that following or blustering the party line, either party, is a solution to NOTHING.

btk

You purposely miss the point that taxpayers in the $250,000 income bracket are continually lumped together with "millionaires and billionaires" to vilify the $250k earners as "the rich" who "aren't paying enough already". Obama did it again last night!

"Keep in mind that under a balanced approach, the 98% of Americans who make under $250,000 would see no tax increases at all. None. In fact, I want to extend the payroll tax cut for working families. What we’re talking about under a balanced approach is asking Americans whose incomes have gone up the most over the last decade – millionaires and billionaires – to share in the sacrifice everyone else has to make."

I find that most people who hear/see $250k and millionaires and billionaires lumped together like this just assume that the $250k earner is not paying enough as the millionaire and billionaire presumably are not.

Politicians only had a balanced budget once since 1909 and then they used FICA as a revenue tax to phony up the budget figures.

So we apparently have people running our country that are highly educated but don't understand the importance of operating within a budget? Surely one of those classes at Harvard covered Profit&Loss, balance sheet, ANOVA, etc...wtf