Tuesdays with Claymore
So Romney’s “47%” recording is the big news of the day over in DUmmyland…for me, I don’t see the big flippin’ deal. In essence, those in Obama’s camp will act shocked and horrified over this “revelation” (which is mostly true) and it affirms what the bulk of Romney supporters already believe anyway. In essence, everyone seems to think that saying what is basically true (that a significant portion of the country is either benefiting from, or desiring something from the government) will kill Romney’s chances for election. I think you’ll see people (even myself) admit that we’re getting perks from nanny government even as others try to justify their handouts as part of what government is supposed to do for its people. Will it sink Mitt? Don’t know. Will it change minds? Perhaps the candyasses in the venerated “middle”. In any case, I’ll try to mix in the more interesting threads, but wading into this mess, it’s dominating the first page so there won’t be as many fun links as usual.
Twitter…the wasteland of stupid
Is it hot in here or is it just me?
DUer’s know what pisses off “independents”
“Please, Mr. Muslim, don’t kill me, I’m on YOUR side!”
…and I still wouldn’t piss on him.
47% chance it was the Ronulans.
Wait, are you making a case for or against public schools?
Paging Neville Chamberlain; DUer’s prefer a nuclear Iran versus a safe Israel?
Pretend wealthy DUer pretends he’s talking to Romney
Translation: I mock Christians because I know they won’t cut off my head
Conservatives are just as bad a Muslims
Appeasement as an exit strategy…how’s that working for ya?
Romney hates children since they’re in the 47%
DUers are Constitutional scholars
Pretend Republicans always talk to strangers in doctor’s office waiting rooms
They have “Christian” in their name and they’re supporting the president, so I like what they
say
Striking a nerve there, Entitlement Baby?
…well, peanut butter IS brown, and oppressed by white bread.
Category: Tuesdays with Claymore
I’m one of those “candyasses” in the middle that leans right will be voting for Mitt Romney. Unfortunatly since I am registered to vote in Alaska the race will be decided before my vote is counted.
Re: Translation link
“I may have a theoretical discussion about them [adherents to non-Christian religions], and criticize them, but to outright mock them will always feel like shitting on someone else’s carpet to me.”
As opposed to doing what he usually does on his own carpet? This clown claims that he cannot “know” anything without personally experiencing it and that without that intimate requisite knowledge (which he claims to possess regarding Christianity), he is prohibited from opining about Islam. “What a ma-roon!”
Allow me to qualify the “candyasses” comment; these are supposedly the paragons of our political landscape, since apparently that is where the mainstream media thinks they reside. What I have found is that those who call themselves moderates generally don’t pay much attention to politics until the season is upon them, and they are inundated with campaign rhetoric on all sides. These “undecideds” are the candyasses to which I refer; their loyalties to a position being easily swayed by whatever soundbite happens to offend their inch-deep sensibilities at the moment. To those who have genuine split opinions, and who pay attention to the issues, I applaud their convictions (as much as I can considering the topic at hand), but to those who try to straddle the middle for fear of making a damn decision or being identified with a cause, you earn nothing but disdain. As I’ve said before, there ain’t nothing but a yellow stripe and road-kill in the middle of the highway.
I was pretty sure that was what you meant, but I couldn’t help myself from busting your chops a little bit. I was raised in a houshold where one parent was a Republican and one was a Democrat. I pay close attention to politics and decide by what I believe in not by party. That being said the current DNC is not swaying me at all, and in fact is pushing me farther and farther to the right.
Welcome to the dark side…we have cookies.
The only “perk” I get from the government is my retirement check, and I earned that. That same “perk” disqualified me from collecting unemployment benefits when I found myself unemployed for nearly a year and a half from 09-2010 even though my former employer paid into the system for me for over eight years. In the meantime, my VA benefits paid to keep me in my home while I took out loans to pay for school. Yet, there are millions who have done nothing for this country and get all kinds of free stuff. Yes, it makes me a bit angry but I guess I’ll get over it, at the ballot box.
As a confirmed middle of the road candyass, I tend to be socially moderate if you consider I don’t mind gays getting married and I believe a society that provides some safety netting for unemployed through training is better off than one that doesn’t.
But I don’t believe we can support programs we can’t pay for like Obamacare, or that we can ignore illegal aliens and the associated costs, and I don’t believe we can continue our current deficit spending without ramifications for generations to come.
I don’t feel I owe the right or the left any special considerations on a regular basis because both the right and the left want me to agree to things that are disagreeable to my thinking.
I don’t think that makes me indecisive, I think it means I expect each party to tell me where their candidates intend to take our country through domestic and foreign policy and I will place my vote with the side that more closely matches my own world view. Not because I expect them to provide me with anything but because I think their position in matching mine provides the best outcome for the nation and by extension, my family.
I want to be left alone with as little interference as possible by either party or the government itself. This positions leads me away from the Democrats into a wary alliance with the Republicans and consequently their odd religious right types who make me quite uncomfortable, but much less uncomfortable than the lunatic left…if that makes me indecisive so be it….
I’ll vote with the right, but don’t expect me to hold up signs trying to jam religion down anyone’s throat, and don’t expect to be on board with opposing gay marriage…call me indecisive, on the fence, whatever…it’s all good with me at the end of the day.
What you’re describing is more of a libertarian than a candyass “moderate”, based on what you’ve shared as far as positions are concerned.
Actually almost none of what he said is true. His most reliable voting block right now is the elderly. Most of which are amongst the 47% that don’t pay income tax. Another sizeable chunk of his voting block that he supposedly cannot reach our folks in red states who generally take much more in government subsistance than they give.
I also might add that many of the folks that don’t pay income tax our in the military, some of them serving in Afghanistan. As Jonn frequently points out, they’re still voting for him by and large as well.
No worries Claymore, I tend to think libertarian a la Jefferson, not like Ron Paul….once again I thank you for your patience, this batch of DU stuff is priceless!!
#@Claymore, what you describe as ‘candyass’ was called a Mugwump in the 19th century. They had their mugs on one side of the fence and their butts on the other.
What kind of cookies?
I’m hoping for peanut butter cookies with hersheys kisses on top.
There’s fly in the room. Cover the cookies.
insipid: as a great man once said: “There you go again.”
Bringing up the military’s combat tax exemption for those deployed to Afghanistan isn’t exactly a great counterexample, fella. You do realize that there are less than 100,000 US military in Afghanistan – right? And that some of those are in fact subject to Federal taxes? (For officers, the tax exemption is limited to the maximum enlisted pay rate.)
By way of comparison, Commerce Department figures indicate 15,000,000 in the US are currently receiving welfare as primary income, costing the US nearly $132 billion. And that total does not include AFDC or unemployment compensation. Those folks all pay zero Federal taxes.
Hell: in 40 states, welfare can bring in more income than a minimum wage job. And in 10 states, it brings in more than an $11/hr job!
http://www.statisticbrain.com/welfare-statistics/
Hondo,
Don’t go confusing the issue with all them facts and stuff….
The entire military population is .7% of the national population…even if the entire force paid no income tax the effect is minimal.
The interesting thing is the gross pay is derived from private sector tax receipts, thus when you consider “taxing” military pay what the Feds are actually doing is just reducing the payout to the troops without actually increasing revenue in the general fund, unless you count not spending money as the same as generating income (which the Feds do)…
I’m okay with those currently serving on active duty not paying taxes and would prefer to see them receive their full gross pay as opposed to seeing their wages “taxed”. The effect is minimal on the budget, and is the right thing to do for those who are willing to sacrifice their bodies and/or their lives on my behalf. For that matter if we are being honest about a military pension, once again “taxing” that money is more about not releasing funds from the treasury than actually generating previously unknown income to the general fund. It is in essence reducing wages to pensioners without actually raising taxable receipts, unless once again you count not spending something as actually generating revenue.
@Twist, how about raisin-nut oatmeal cookies, with REAL old-fashioned oatmeal?
That’s a straw-man, Hondo. My point isn’t that the military serving in Afghanistan should pay income tax and i’m certainly not calling them deadbeats- Mitt Romney is doing that. I actually agree that it is right and proper that they shouldn’t have to pay income tax. I also think that it is right and proper that the elderly, shouldn’t have to pay taxes on their SS income. What I AM saying- and Hondo isn’t disagreeing with that (instead he’s trying to pretend i was putting them down) is that 1. Many of these people are (or at least prior to this video, were) his supporters and 2. Many of them are part of the 47% who don’t pay income tax.
If you could kindly argue with what i am actually saying rather than shooting down stuff I never said it would be appreciated.
@18 NOW YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION…old school cookies indeed!! Throw in an ice cold glass of milk and I will….well let’s just way I would do some yard work or some such for that…
Oh, and Reagan is a man who traded arms with Iran, engaged in the drug trade with South America, gave amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, trippled the debt and started this country on the downward spiral that is finally being reversed by President Obama. That’s a strange definition of “great”.
@17- Whether they are .7% or .01% is irrelevant. I do not look upon people who don’t pay income taxes as substandard or less than- that’s a Republican thing. What I AM saying is that it is a fact that many members of the Armed forces are part of the 47%. If you think being part of the 47% is a bad thing, that’s on you. Don’t try and hang your hang-up on me. Merely stating the facts of their economic status is not making an estimation as to their worth. It is Republicans that tend to measure the value of a man as to how much money they make. Mitt is a golden example of a guy who is worth a lot of money, yet his a complete douche.
Twist…those of us who vote our conscience, ie- beleifs have a name…Crispians…I got Reese’s!
Insipid- The downward spiral has us spinning out like the god-damned Tasmanian devil and you believe it’s turning around?
Holy#$%^&*(*&^ Batman- you are cray-cray!! Tell me what your Messiah has done, to turn it around? Because I must be too broke to pay attention…
And another thing Insipid…To have a stake in the game, everyone should have to pay taxes, period. I don’t like the idea that my 20k goes out the feds and they in turn give 3k of that to someone who has not paid one red cent of income taxes. Nope. It’s not okay with me. And bringing up the sales tax crap is a no-go.
If you are on the public dole and you score 24k from unemployment and 7200. in SNAP (food stamps) and you get medicaid- a value of 5500., you should have to pay taxes. People working real jobs don’t make that much. WHOOP! Der it is! As long as The empty suit has his way, the feds will become the sole provider and that population will eventually suck the workers dry. Effectively known as Running out of OPM. (Other People’s Money)
It’s a misleading argument on many levels regarding 47% not paying income taxes as it suggests that these folks pay no taxes at all which is incorrect. Payroll taxes affect the people in that 47% at a much higher rate than the 53%…
2009 data is what is being quoted during a lot of this from a report on the Joint Committee for Taxation and the Brookings Tax Policy Center. 82 percent of working households pay more in payroll taxes than in federal income taxes. Low- and moderate-income people pay a much larger share of their incomes in federal payroll taxes than high-income people do: taxpayers in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale paid an average of 8.8 percent of their incomes in payroll taxes in 2007, compared to 1.6 percent of income for those in the top 1 percent of the income distribution.Taking payroll taxes into account, in 2009, some 83 percent of filers paid either some federal payroll or some federal income tax.
Income tax is one tax only, mis-representing who pays what does little for either side in advancing an argument for appropriate reform.
I made the same point many times Veritas. Considering income tax only IS misleading. I disagree with your point avove where you said “Obamacare” isn’t paid for. It is.
The maximum you can make on unemployment is 330 a week Veritas which translates to about 17 K a year. Most states do not allow you to get medicaid unless you have children and a single person without children must usually get below 12k a year to qualify for food stamps. So it’s just not true that there’s people living on unemployment doing sizeably better than folks with a decent job. Furthermore, a person on unemployment is not a “moocher”. Unemployment is insurance. These people paid into it. Those receiving unemployment insurance after losing a job through no fault of their own are no more moochers than those receiving fire or auto insurance brought about by an accident or act of god that occured through no fault of their own.
But MAN you all LOVE the class warfare, don’t you?
@27 Obamacare is paid for if you believe CBO projections. The CBO has been unable to project a yearly budget accurately for the last 36 years that I have been a registered voter. Thus the constant need to “emergency” budget extensions every single year and the resulting Congressional chaos. Now I am supposed to believe the CBO has figured out how to cost out a massive program over the next ten years, when they can’t budget project on a 12 month scale accurately? I will be unlikely to be persuaded on this point. Only in the federal government is not spending something akin to generating revenue, if I ran my business that way I would be arrested and charged with fraud to my investors for misleading them. I remain very skeptical of the CBO.
With our current debt load the healthcare mandate reduces nothing in terms of debt service, and increases the load on credit in reality. Social Security has become the biggest lie to citizens that I am aware of, Obamacare will be a bigger lie if it lives.
Sorry, that last post was meant for Defendusa.
@30 No worries, I can take a hit as well as the next fellow.
Class warfare is not unique to either party if you are inclined to be honest. Convincing people to vote for you or to at least vote against the other guy means convincing them that the other guy is not looking out for their interests whether those interests are monetary or not. “Putting y’all back in chains” is as obvious a strike at class warfare as is the 47% who pay no taxes are never voting for me.
Neither side has the exclusive rights to using class warfare as a means to an end.
I have become cynical regarding politicians that I am not inclined to believe most of what any of them say. I just look at what they have done and decide who hurts me the least if they are elected. It’s clear you believe in Obama, I don’t in any way shape or form. It doesn’t mean I believe in Romney it just means I think he hurts me less than Obama. I am unwilling to try Obama for 4 more years to see what happens, I won’t be voting for him.
Best of luck in your efforts to get Obama elected, although I hope you fail as much as you most certainly hope I fail.
Well, thank you for the civility. I think Romney is putting far more of an effort into getting Obama elected then I ever will.
How do you think Obama is “hurting” you?
The maximum rate per week for monetary unemployment benefits varies from state to state and is based on quarterly income.
For California, the maximum is $450. For New York state, the maximum is $405, for the same income level.
This means that, not counting Medicaid or food stamps, the monetary portioin of unemployment compensation based on the same income amounts in California is $23,400 and in New York state, it is $21,060.
It is also considered to be taxable income, which means that you have to file a tax return and pay fedearl income tax on it. If you don’t do so, the IRS will be sending you a letter about your miscreance.
Well, you have to find the REASON for the CBO’s supposed inability to predict a budget accurately. If there’s an “emergency” supplemental for the war passed in the middle of the year, that’s going to make the budget innacurate, or if there’s an unpaid for massive drug expansion program passed, that too will make the budget innacurate. But neither of those are a reflection of whether or not they do or don’t perform well. The CBO was fairly accurate as to how much the Bush Tax cuts would cose for instance.
If anything, i believe the CBO underistimated the cost saving of the PPACA because they did not take into account any of the cost saving measures. The requirement for electronic medical records alone should save billions and improve care. Already the PPACA has lowered the rate of health care expansion to its lowest level in 40 years, and that’s without full implementation. So far everything it was supposed to do, it’s done- as well or better than expected.
You guys do understand that this figure was pulled out of his ass right? If you look it up actually 46% of us don’t pay federal taxes.
I hate to do this to you guys claiming the welfare stuff (I’m voting for Romney by the way)! But Federal Income tax and Payroll tax are totally seperate. Actually probably everyone on this message board gets back their federal income tax at the end of the year.
What we actually pay is payroll tax, that usually goes to the state (dependent on the state of course), the federal government and social security (still federal government but considered seperate).
So all you guy’s jumping on Romney’s bandwagon might do well to sit down for a bit and just accept that he made a huge error here. By the way, if you’re in the military your part of the group he’s talking about. It’s not changing my vote, but it does make him look like a pompous asshole.
So, since they pay income tax, ex ph2, they’re not part of the 47%??
I love the fact that two of the Romney “supporters” on this thread- veritas and joshua- seem to be supporting him while trying not to wretch.
It is my opinion that a continued path down deficit lane will ultimately create short and long term havoc with the budget beginning very quickly.
Thus far no president since I started voting in the mid 70s has actually turned a surplus (Despite the propaganda Clinton did not have a surplus because he did not reduce the deficit in any year he served, it’s a fact the deficit increased every year during his 8 years you can check it out on the treasury’s own website.) so I am not convinced that Romney will change that trend, but at least there is a plan from Ryan that attempts to address it. I am not convinced his numbers work as well as he claims, but I am convinced Obama’s numbers don’t work at all based on his 4 years of effort to date. He appears to be as effectual as Jimmy Carter was during his term, which was pretty useless. He has brought no one together in spite of his claims that working together was a priority, he wasted two years trying to persuade his own party during their super majority period that Obama care was worthwhile and had to bribe his own party members to get the votes he needed to pass that beast….if he could barely convince his own party to vote for it I am not surprised he has struggled to work across the aisle to get much else done.
My new voting philosophy is quite simple, you might get my vote one time. Don’t do what you promise and I will vote against you, every time regardless of your party. If I can get enough folks working with me to remove incumbents who are full of sh1t, at some point we might actually find a few who are willing to do the heavy lifting and get this country squared away.
VOV, I would love to send you a box of cookies, but mine don’t have preservatives in them and I don’t think they’d survive a trip. I’ll get out the recipe and post it for you.
Or you could ask Jonn to e-mail your mailing address to me, and I can give it a shot. But no promises on freshness.
@35 that was the point of my post @26 the year that this report refers to (2009) actually points out that 83 percent of the folks who filed federal income tax returns paid taxes whether payroll or income.
The report also points out that if you factor in payroll, state, and local taxes the bottom 5th of income earners actually pay about 16% of their income in taxes. Which percentage wise is just a little less than Warren Buffet’s rate of 17.4% which is what prompted Buffet’s famous comments.
@39, wow that’s a helluva nice offer ma’am. That you would be willing to do so touches me greatly….I would be a happy recipient of the recipe m’lady and I can do a little baking on my own to maintain appropriate freshness….
I can post my email or ask that it be forwarded to you. Thank you kindly!
Social Security retirement income is taxable income; the rates are in the IRS tax schedules. The taxable amount is 50% of the annual amount, less the standard deductions. Anything remaining after standard deductions is subject to federal income tax. In states that levy income taxes, retirement income may or may not be subject to income tax.
Medicare Part A is free, Medicare Parts B, C, and D requirement a premium payment. Part B, outpatient care such as doctors’ visits, is subject to a premium which is deducted from monthly Social Security retirement payments. Part C is supplemental insurance through an insurance carrier, to cover what Parts A and B don’t cover. Part D is prescription drug coverage, also through an insurance carrier. Veterans may substitute VA prescriptiom drug coverage for Part D; there is, or should be, a sign to that effect at any VA medical center you go to, including drop-in centers. The co-payment is modest, about $8.00.
Dividends and interest are ordinary income, NOT earned income and are subject to federal income tax; the rates are in the tax schedule booklet, available at the IRS’s website. Ordinary income is NOT eligible for Social Security or Medicare taxes, therefore it does not contribute to eligibility for SSRI and Medicare. Retirement income, from IRAs or annuities, is ORDINARY income.
Payroll income is earned income and is subject to FICA, SSRI and Medicare taxes, plus any state income taxes.
The total amount paid in FICA, SSRI and Medicare taxes can add up to as much as 50% of a paycheck after taxes are deducted, depending on EARNED income levels and how many or few exemptions you take on your W-4.
VOV, it’s okay with me if you have Jonn forward your e-mail to me.
The media is trying to frame this in a way that is negative to his campaign. I don’t think that many are really taking the way it is being spewed out there. If it was going to be a devastating attack it would have been released a little closer to the time of the election not now. There are a lot of people out there who worked very hard and earned benefits, but there are a lot out there who expect handouts. If Romney campaigns to those who expect handouts he is going to lose, that is Obama’s bread and butter he speaks to the mob who simply will show up to the ballot box with the attitude of, “what is Unca Sugar going to do for me?” He can’t win that battle. Obama doesn’t see the difference between a veteran who cannot work anymore because of injuries and a loser who refuses to work. He will promise the loser the sky to get his vote and if that is the way he want to earn votes then he can have them. There are tons of people out here who weren’t offended by the statement because we knew he wan’t talking about us, he was talking about people who were going to vote for him anyway because he wasn’t going to promise them a handout.
What a crock ALL of this is! There are a bazillion folks who pay no taxes. Some of those pay no sales tax. Some pay no income tax. Pick your poisin.
The simple point that Romney made is that those who pay no taxes tend to be the ones who support and will vote for the poser. It happens to be the truth.
A bunch of the folks I know who pay no federal income tax on their military pay from time to time are still paying real estate taxes, still pay income tax on their spouse’s income, etc.
For myself, it was terribly refreshing to hear a pol espouse honest concerns about real problems. The truth is the truth is the truth even when articulated in un-pc ways.
It’s about time we hear some raw truth instead of the pretty lies we usually get.
Oh, wait! It’s not ALL a crock – at least not among the comments here. Count me in on the cookie deal. If they are free, it doesn’t matter, but oatmeal is good. With or without raisins. With or without nuts and chocolate chips. I’ll even contribute the butter for them.
OWB, please ask Jonn to forward your info to me. Thanks.
Oh and I pay a shit ton in taxes: property, personal property, cellphone, sales, and about five hundred others that I can’t think of… Oh and thanks to the new tax structure on bonuses my wife’s bonuses she gets from her job which are a big part of her structure are taxed at 40%…yeah we pay a shit ton in taxes. I still don’t get my goddamned street cleared of snow in the winter. Shaking my damned fist.
@37 Insipid, I am trying my best to not throw up this November when I go to check off “Romney” on the ballot.
Hey, boys and girls!
I have a little something for your amusement:
http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/reverb-blogpost.aspx?post=43a093ab-3a7a-487c-912e-3554840e101c>1=28102
Just remember that Randy Newman is the same fellow who wrote the very famous “Short People”. I was constantly bombarded with this piece by people I worked with, but it allowed me an opportunity to tell them to do something about their breath.