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Presidential Election Poll


Jimmy Leeds

Presidential Election/Unscientific Poll  

42 members have voted

  1. 1. For those eligible, who are you voting for in November?



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My hope is that Jesse Ventura runs in 2016. I've never done it, but I would absolutely consider campaigning for that man. 150 years of Republican and Democrat dominance is enough. They won't lose it this year though.

Ventura thinks the Twin Towers were brought down by the US gov't through painted Thermite on the walls and that HAARP may have caused the tsunami in Japan. Just those alone are pretty outside the main stream and, for me, pretty nutty.

I really like a lot of things Ventura has had to say, such as:

-- being "fiscally conservative and socially liberal

-- gay rights, gay marriage

-- feeling that the two-party system has corrupted government

-- stop nation building and bring a lot of our troops home

Plus he's not afraid to admit when he doesn't know something or hasn't yet formed a definitive opinion on the issue. Some might see that as a negative, but I see it as a positive.

I wish there were more candidates out there voicing similar positions.

As for his 9/11 theories, I could look past them because I think he'd be smart enough not to waste a lot of time delving into it if he saw that it was going to prevent him from handling more urgent matters.

However, he isn't even running this time around, so it's all moot.

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I personally believe that a vote for a candidate that is assuredly going to lose is a wasted vote, but I completely understand the perspective of someone voting for one of those people as its their right.

I actually agree. The problem is money and the stranglehold on the process that the two major parties have. I would love to see Stein and Johnson allowed to debate. IMO if you get on a percentage of the ballot (say 75%), you should automatically be allowed to debate. I also think Citizens United should be done away with. There should be no anonymous money in politics. The rules as they are set up now are heavily weighted towards the two major parties.

The only wasted votes are the ones that are cast for someone you don't truly support. Also even though Stein or Johnson most likely won't win, if they get a certain percentage of the vote, I believe their party is automatically on the ballot the next time around, so it is not at all a wasted vote. It actually ends up being more meaningful than a vote cast for Romney in a state that Obama wins because it's actually going to count for something.

And yeah the Commission on Presidential Debates is a partnership between the two major parties so they're obviously going to do whatever they can to keep everybody out except for Romney and Obama. Gary Johnson has filed an anti-trust lawsuit against them though, so we'll see what becomes of it. Meanwhile, the Republicans are still challenging Johnson's ballot access petition signatures in court. They have lost the challenges in I think every state they've challenged in, but they are appealing just to waste the limited time and money the Libertarian Party has. They needed somewhere around 20,000 signatures in Pennsylvania to get on the ballot, and they got nearly 50,000, but the Republicans are still appealing the ruling that enough of the signatures are valid. They know it's bullsh!t but they're just trying to waste the Libertarian Party's resources. The Democrats did the same to Nader in 2004. The major parties are 100% opposed to fair elections, if you support fair elections but vote for either of the two major parties, to me that is a wasted vote.

This is the only debate that matters this year:

http://freeandequal.org/debates/four-candidates-confirmed-for-the-2012-presidential-debate

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... actually ends up being more meaningful than a vote cast for Romney in a state that Obama wins because it's actually going to count for something.

That's the part of the electoral college I can't stand. I see using it to keep candidates from ignoring less populated states and blowing off their concerns, but I really don't think it should be used as it is anymore. A states electoral votes should be split proportionally to the popular vote outcome I can NOT stand all of NJ's electorates going to the democrats. I know this may have gotten Al "internet" Gore elected, but whatever is fair is always what you want.

... They needed somewhere around 20,000 signatures in Pennsylvania to get on the ballot, and they got nearly 50,000, but the Republicans are still appealing the ruling that enough of the signatures are valid.

Can't stand this horsesh!t either. I just picture a room full of cigar chewing fat bodies planning how they will "waste the competitions money" by throwing bullsh!t lawsuits at them. I SO want frivolous lawsuits across the boards to be more punishable.

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Can two parties make a Coalition to run in the office??

Besides there being a chasm between political views and what each party represents, I don't see why not. I'm sure there's some political bs rule preventing it though.

But I could see it being beneficial for a couple of them to team up with the more popular of the two running for pres and the lesser as his vp. At least that'd give em a better chance.

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That's the part of the electoral college I can't stand. I see using it to keep candidates from ignoring less populated states and blowing off their concerns, but I really don't think it should be used as it is anymore. A states electoral votes should be split proportionally to the popular vote outcome I can NOT stand all of NJ's electorates going to the democrats. I know this may have gotten Al "internet" Gore elected, but whatever is fair is always what you want.

Agreed and if we keep on electing Democrats and Republicans it is NEVER going to change. The odds of a third party or independent knocking down all the obstacles and winning the presidency are very small, but at least if the Democrats and Republicans keep missing out on votes to the third parties and independents, they may pick up some parts of their platforms.

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it is NEVER going to change.

Unfortunately, while everything you said is valid, I think this is the most accurate part of your statement.

I'm voting Obama, because I'm liberal, because I want to see progress on gay marriage, and no repeal of Roe v. Wade, and I think 4 more years of a Democrat appointing judges helps that (though I'm disgusted that in a system in which legislative, executive, and judicial are supposed to be separate, the highest judicial body is a political appointment by the legislative branch).

I'm sick of the 2 party system, but doubt it ever changes, especially because it breeds apathy. If all the disgusted undecideds/non voters made a statement by showing up and voting for a 3rd party candidate, that would be the biggest landslide ever. If they split between Stein and Johnson those 2 would still destroy Romney and Obama, but it will be a miracle if many of them even turn on the news election day, forget going to the polls.

Finally, I'm disappointed in Obama's first term, like anyone with a brain should be, but I still have some hope he'll get better. I think he ran assuming American politics could change, and found out he was wrong. I hope he has learned to work in the Washington we have rather than trying to create a decent Washington. I also think he was working more toward reelection the past couple years (disgusting, but again, that's the Washington we have), and hope he spends a second term making the decisions he feels are right for the country rather than safe. I was young during the Clinton years, but I remember him doing a lot more good things in his second term, even as he was mired in the Lewinsky crap.

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That article sucked. The guy has crap reasons for wasting his vote. Gary Johnson? Who the fvck is Gary Johnson and why is anyone pretending he's relevant to this election. The problem with the thought that Johnson might affect the election is that they think, "well, Nader had an effect in 2000". Well, that's because Nader only took away votes from one party's base, the Dems. Johnson, while appealing to some tea party like people, takes from both ends of the political spectrum. He gets the people who like Ron Paul for saying drugs should be legal and admitting our foreign policies make us an empire, but he also gets people who think any gov't is too much gov't, and those people are mostly republicans. For Johnson to matter, he'll have to steal a significantly higher amount of votes from one or the other party, because if he steals from both, it won't make a difference in reality.

So my point is that if your choices are truly only Obama or Romney, who do you think will do the best job while containing more of your ideals than the other guy. Obama wins for me on that, not because I'm in love with him or think he's the beacon of light at the front of the lefty train, but because I think Romney would be that much worse than him. I don't know who Mitt Romney is, I don't know what he thinks, believes or, hell, even if the guy likes apple pie or not. No one knows because Mitt Romney isn't a person, he's a puppet, he can be anything he needs to be, moderate or extreme, whichever is most advantageous at the time, he will be. At least Obama makes me feel like he's a genuine person who's had varying life experiences. With Romney, I just see an image in my head of him eating his caviar laced meal on the top of his ironing board in the dingy basement apartment he and his wife shared in their most difficult time(bleghhhh<--me vomiting).

I don't think our foreign policy has changed much, if at all from Bush II and I don't like Obama for that, I hate the drone strikes that surely create more terrorists than they could ever possible kill and his half assed try at universal healthcare is just plain blah, it's a half way watered down compromise that doesn't really achieve anything except higher profits for the insurance companies. But Obama at least thinks that's the right(ish) direction, Romney wants us to all live in tax free utopia where magic paves roads and whatnot, but that's not reality, we can't all pay only 10-15% taxes, I barely make any money and I pay around 18-20%, about 50% more than Romney did the past two years and one can only assume, even more compared to what he paid previous to that.

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That article sucked. The guy has crap reasons for wasting his vote. Gary Johnson? Who the fvck is Gary Johnson and why is anyone pretending he's relevant to this election. The problem with the thought that Johnson might affect the election is that they think, "well, Nader had an effect in 2000". Well, that's because Nader only took away votes from one party's base, the Dems. Johnson, while appealing to some tea party like people, takes from both ends of the political spectrum. He gets the people who like Ron Paul for saying drugs should be legal and admitting our foreign policies make us an empire, but he also gets people who think any gov't is too much gov't, and those people are mostly republicans. For Johnson to matter, he'll have to steal a significantly higher amount of votes from one or the other party, because if he steals from both, it won't make a difference in reality.

So my point is that if your choices are truly only Obama or Romney, who do you think will do the best job while containing more of your ideals than the other guy. Obama wins for me on that, not because I'm in love with him or think he's the beacon of light at the front of the lefty train, but because I think Romney would be that much worse than him. I don't know who Mitt Romney is, I don't know what he thinks, believes or, hell, even if the guy likes apple pie or not. No one knows because Mitt Romney isn't a person, he's a puppet, he can be anything he needs to be, moderate or extreme, whichever is most advantageous at the time, he will be. At least Obama makes me feel like he's a genuine person who's had varying life experiences. With Romney, I just see an image in my head of him eating his caviar laced meal on the top of his ironing board in the dingy basement apartment he and his wife shared in their most difficult time(bleghhhh<--me vomiting).

I don't think our foreign policy has changed much, if at all from Bush II and I don't like Obama for that, I hate the drone strikes that surely create more terrorists than they could ever possible kill and his half assed try at universal healthcare is just plain blah, it's a half way watered down compromise that doesn't really achieve anything except higher profits for the insurance companies. But Obama at least thinks that's the right(ish) direction, Romney wants us to all live in tax free utopia where magic paves roads and whatnot, but that's not reality, we can't all pay only 10-15% taxes, I barely make any money and I pay around 18-20%, about 50% more than Romney did the past two years and one can only assume, even more compared to what he paid previous to that.

Thank you for your eloquent response. Gary Johnson is a two-term governor of New Mexico. If you think Nader only took votes from the Democrats then you are just believing whatever the Democrats told you because if you actually did any research you would know that is not the case. Also, these people are not "taking" votes. People are willingly voting for them over any of the others because they are who they want to see as president. Why are the Democrats and Republicans entitled to everybody's vote? If I vote for Johnson, he isn't "taking" my vote away from Romney or Obama. Also the fact that people on both sides of the aisle support Johnson shows how bad the two major parties are at representing their voter bases.

If my choices are only Obama and Romney, that would really suck. I wouldn't even bother voting because both of them are so bad and are practically the same. Luckily they haven't completely taken all third parties and independents off the ballot, at least not yet.

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That article sucked. The guy has crap reasons for wasting his vote. Gary Johnson? Who the fvck is Gary Johnson and why is anyone pretending he's relevant to this election. The problem with the thought that Johnson might affect the election is that they think, "well, Nader had an effect in 2000". Well, that's because Nader only took away votes from one party's base, the Dems. Johnson, while appealing to some tea party like people, takes from both ends of the political spectrum. He gets the people who like Ron Paul for saying drugs should be legal and admitting our foreign policies make us an empire, but he also gets people who think any gov't is too much gov't, and those people are mostly republicans. For Johnson to matter, he'll have to steal a significantly higher amount of votes from one or the other party, because if he steals from both, it won't make a difference in reality.

So my point is that if your choices are truly only Obama or Romney, who do you think will do the best job while containing more of your ideals than the other guy. Obama wins for me on that, not because I'm in love with him or think he's the beacon of light at the front of the lefty train, but because I think Romney would be that much worse than him. I don't know who Mitt Romney is, I don't know what he thinks, believes or, hell, even if the guy likes apple pie or not. No one knows because Mitt Romney isn't a person, he's a puppet, he can be anything he needs to be, moderate or extreme, whichever is most advantageous at the time, he will be. At least Obama makes me feel like he's a genuine person who's had varying life experiences. With Romney, I just see an image in my head of him eating his caviar laced meal on the top of his ironing board in the dingy basement apartment he and his wife shared in their most difficult time(bleghhhh<--me vomiting).

I don't think our foreign policy has changed much, if at all from Bush II and I don't like Obama for that, I hate the drone strikes that surely create more terrorists than they could ever possible kill and his half assed try at universal healthcare is just plain blah, it's a half way watered down compromise that doesn't really achieve anything except higher profits for the insurance companies. But Obama at least thinks that's the right(ish) direction, Romney wants us to all live in tax free utopia where magic paves roads and whatnot, but that's not reality, we can't all pay only 10-15% taxes, I barely make any money and I pay around 18-20%, about 50% more than Romney did the past two years and one can only assume, even more compared to what he paid previous to that.

Romney wants us to live in tax free utopia? Wow. Why assume lower rates in previous years or are you just making up assumptions to fit your view?

Do you know why Romney's effective tax rate is lower than yours? Have you looked into it? I have. I even reviewed his 2011 return. Romney's 8 figure income is primarily investment income, interest income and capital gains, which is favored under current tax law. Your income (I am making an assumption here, pls correct me if I am wrong) is probably mostly wage income as is mine. Romney actually had $0 in wages in 2011. My understanding of why investment income has a favored tax status when compared to wage income is that presumably you earn the money first through wages, then invest it and then are taxed on the income again. So after the money was given to you as compensation for your hard work, if invested, it is taxed twice before you get it (I am not even taking into account corporate taxes), hence the lower rate. On an absolute basis Romney's paid income tax is many multiples of what you paid (not to mention the amount he gave to "charity" which I'll assume is also many multiples of what you gave). The whole attack on Romney's tax return is a big non-issue. I hate the US tax code but having investment income taxed at a lower rate than wage income makes sense to me. Sure we can argue the absolute tax rates till we are blue in the face but the point is, their relationship to each other makes sense.

As for wasting a vote, actually that article is one that has pretty much cemented my view to vote for GJ not Romney nor Obama. Somewhere, sometime, we as a people need to express our displeasure with the two parties and their comical platforms and groupthink. I choose to make my stand now. Hopefully, more and more people will join me and the two goliaths will have to take notice of those that are unhappy with their rigid extremist platforms.

Edited by devilsadvoc8
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Romney wants us to live in tax free utopia? Wow. Why assume lower rates in previous years or are you just making up assumptions to fit your view?

Do you know why Romney's effective tax rate is lower than yours? Have you looked into it? I have. I even reviewed his 2011 return. Romney's 8 figure income is primarily investment income, interest income and capital gains, which is favored under current tax law. Your income (I am making an assumption here, pls correct me if I am wrong) is probably mostly wage income as is mine. Romney actually had $0 in wages in 2011. My understanding of why investment income has a favored tax status when compared to wage income is that presumably you earn the money first through wages, then invest it and then are taxed on the income again. So after the money was given to you as compensation for your hard work, if invested, it is taxed twice before you get it (I am not even taking into account corporate taxes), hence the lower rate. On an absolute basis Romney's paid income tax is many multiples of what you paid (not to mention the amount he gave to "charity" which I'll assume is also many multiples of what you gave). The whole attack on Romney's tax return is a big non-issue. I hate the US tax code but having investment income taxed at a lower rate than wage income makes sense to me. Sure we can argue the absolute tax rates till we are blue in the face but the point is, their relationship to each other makes sense.

As for wasting a vote, actually that article is one that has pretty much cemented my view to vote for GJ not Romney nor Obama. Somewhere, sometime, we as a people need to express our displeasure with the two parties and their comical platforms and groupthink. I choose to make my stand now. Hopefully, more and more people will join me and the two goliaths will have to take notice of those that are unhappy with their rigid extremist platforms.

Romney also lowered his tax burden by making sizable charitable donations.

Focusing on Romney's or Warren Buffett's effective tax rate is really a sideshow. Fact is, if you want to fund a generous welfare state you need to increase the tax base. That's what they do in Europe with very high sales tax/VAT, which is regressive.

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My understanding of why investment income has a favored tax status when compared to wage income is that presumably you earn the money first through wages, then invest it and then are taxed on the income again. So after the money was given to you as compensation for your hard work, if invested, it is taxed twice before you get it (I am not even taking into account corporate taxes), hence the lower rate. On an absolute basis Romney's paid income tax is many multiples of what you paid (not to mention the amount he gave to "charity" which I'll assume is also many multiples of what you gave). The whole attack on Romney's tax return is a big non-issue. I hate the US tax code but having investment income taxed at a lower rate than wage income makes sense to me. Sure we can argue the absolute tax rates till we are blue in the face but the point is, their relationship to each other makes sense.

I've heard this before and it's bullsh!t. Income is income, it shouldn't doesn't matter if you are using money that was once taxed to make it. My saving's account doesn't get taxed at a lesser rate even though it's "taxed" money. When I go to the store and buy something I can't opt to pay a lower sales tax because I'm using after tax dollars.

The reason for the low tax rate of long term investments is to encourage people to do it rather then just sit on it.

I agree that Romney's federal income tax is a non issue to his candidacy, I don't expect someone to pay more in taxes then they technically owe, and I don't hold it against him. But it does highlight a problem (if you should see it that way) where the very rich have revenue streams taxed at lower rates. A simplified tax code would solve this problem, even a 20% flat tax (with a simple average 30k deduction) could possibly work.

Fact is, if you want to fund a generous welfare state you need to increase the tax base. That's what they do in Europe with very high sales tax/VAT, which is regressive.

Yes, but you don't necessarily need a very high national sales tax. You could just revert to the tax structure we had under Clinton. I am not suggestion that is the be all end all fix, but it's start to a balanced budget.

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Yes, but you don't necessarily need a very high national sales tax. You could just revert to the tax structure we had under Clinton. I am not suggestion that is the be all end all fix, but it's start to a balanced budget.

The tax structure, even during the Bush years, is not a whole lot different than it was in the Clinton years, with the exception of the estate tax, which could be the most destructive class warfare tax ever devised (but that's a different issue). Also, there were balanced budgets in the Clinton years because of a booming economy, which probably had very little or nothing to do with the tax code, at least as compared to his predecessor and successor. And that's without having to come anywhere close to the welfare states that exist in Europe.

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The tax structure, even during the Bush years, is not a whole lot different than it was in the Clinton years, with the exception of the estate tax, which could be the most destructive class warfare tax ever devised (but that's a different issue). Also, there were balanced budgets in the Clinton years because of a booming economy, which probably had very little or nothing to do with the tax code, at least as compared to his predecessor and successor. And that's without having to come anywhere close to the welfare states that exist in Europe.

I thought I qualified the statement that returning to Clinton era tax rates was not the end all fix pretty well, it's just the start. I think it's hard to argue that the structure isn't a lot different when you look at revenues in terms of GDP

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tkoBGZGxru0/TLRfae9jxRI/AAAAAAAAAMw/gxhUjGRY9I0/s1600/Federal+Tax+Revenue.jpg

Yes, some of that is due to the recession where people have less money to be taxed, but that's the harder problem to solve. The other part of why revenues are so low are from massive tax cuts from Bush and Obama. For a long time we had really high tax rates, and we started cutting them and realized that people just invested that money back into the system and we prospered, so we kept doing it. It appears we have hit a saturation point where we have cut taxes too low to be getting a equal gain. I think it's pretty reasonable to return to the last "save point" and and go from there.

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As for wasting a vote, actually that article is one that has pretty much cemented my view to vote for GJ not Romney nor Obama. Somewhere, sometime, we as a people need to express our displeasure with the two parties and their comical platforms and groupthink. I choose to make my stand now. Hopefully, more and more people will join me and the two goliaths will have to take notice of those that are unhappy with their rigid extremist platforms.

Well put. How much worse do things need to get before we wake up and stop arguing over things that distract us from the real issues, inconsequential things like who paid what in taxes, birth certificates, who is a better "job creator" etc? This nonsense just derails us from focusing on stuff that actually matters like the government continuing to take our rights away via Patriot Act, NDAA, SOPA/PIPA, spying on citizents, etc; constant multiple simultaneous wars; drone strikes that terrorize scores of civilians; the skyrocketing national debt; the dollar continuing to lose value; the list goes on. It's time we stop this downward spiral and steer this country in the right direction by abandoning the Democrats and Republicans and moving on.

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What a reward for getting off your ass and being successful, lets tax the sh!t out of them.

Yes, "tax the sh!t out of them" by treating all income fairly or raising the top bracket from 35 to 39.6%. The rich (and middle class) have basically never seen their tax burden so low in anyone's lifetime (with apologies to the scarce 100+ year old millionaires), they aren't getting the "sh!t taxed out of them", they are being asked to pay what they did 12 years ago, still substantially less then what they were taxed under Reagan.

Edited by squishyx
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Figured I'd share this comment I found on facebook because it does a decent job of summing up my feelings about the Democrats...

Please recall that Obama’s savaging of social security through his payroll tax reduction was part of a deal with the Republicans. What was that deal? Republicans got their much-coveted tax cut for the rich by extending the Bush Tax Cuts and Democrats got the opportunity to help destroy the future of Social Security by defunding it thru a payroll tax deduction. Now our own government informs us that Social Security has lost 3 years of projected solvency in only one year of Obama’s payroll tax cut: Solvency to 2037 has been lowered to solvency to 2034. Yes, please–let’s have four more years of that!!!

I would consider it funny if the effects of this administration’s activities weren’t so stark. Obama’s campaign of fighting for the middle class is positively Orwellian. How stupid are we? Answer: Very. We watch Wall Street take 2 billion dollars and give 1 billion to Obama and 1 billion to Romney. We watch this and think one of these candidates is really working for us and not the one who gave him a billion. God, that’s dumb!

When the history of this era is written the modern liberal will be the culprit which allowed America to become an Aristocracy. We stood by and watched the deterioration of the middle class and came out every two years to campaign for the Democrats under the illusion that they were fighting for us. We voted for the “lesser of two evils” and look at the results. We wouldn’t organize to take the bold actions needed to topple the Democratic Party leaders and reform it, or create a third alternative and new party.

Rahm Emmanual famously advised President Obama to ignore the liberals. He told Barack that they had no where to go and would be back at election time. He also called us “fxxking retards”. He was right. I’ve been a “fxxing retard” and pulled those Democratic levers automatically all my life. They didn’t have to do anything to earn my vote (and believe me–they didn’t). As long as they weren’t Republicans they had me. I was their stooge.

I’m not playing that game any more. I’m with you Lynn. My vote has to be earned now. I will no longer vote out of fear of the Republicans. I am a reformed “fxxking retard”. Some of my friends are still unreformed “fxxing retards”.

Some are in the anti-fracking movement and are voting & campaigning for the “drill, baby, drill” Democratic ticket.

Some are single-payer advocates and are voting for the party that killed the public option and wouldn’t give single-payer advocates a seat at the table during health care reform.

Some are Occupy Wall Street activists who seem unaware that it was the Democratic Party who shut down their movement. 18 Democratic mayors and 1 Independent mayor (Bloomburg) set the police on the Demonstrators–all under the direction of Obama’s Homeland Security Department.

Some are civil and constitutional rights advocates who watched this administration pass laws giving the President the right to kill and keeping demonstrators away from our Presidential election.

They are supporting the continuation of the Bush Doctrine.

They are supporting continued drone-bombing.

They are supporting endless war.

They are supporting the Shock Doctrine.

They are supporting the death of the liberal vision.

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Romney wants us to live in tax free utopia? Wow. Why assume lower rates in previous years or are you just making up assumptions to fit your view?

Do you know why Romney's effective tax rate is lower than yours? Have you looked into it? I have. I even reviewed his 2011 return. Romney's 8 figure income is primarily investment income, interest income and capital gains, which is favored under current tax law. Your income (I am making an assumption here, pls correct me if I am wrong) is probably mostly wage income as is mine. Romney actually had $0 in wages in 2011. My understanding of why investment income has a favored tax status when compared to wage income is that presumably you earn the money first through wages, then invest it and then are taxed on the income again. So after the money was given to you as compensation for your hard work, if invested, it is taxed twice before you get it (I am not even taking into account corporate taxes), hence the lower rate. On an absolute basis Romney's paid income tax is many multiples of what you paid (not to mention the amount he gave to "charity" which I'll assume is also many multiples of what you gave). The whole attack on Romney's tax return is a big non-issue. I hate the US tax code but having investment income taxed at a lower rate than wage income makes sense to me. Sure we can argue the absolute tax rates till we are blue in the face but the point is, their relationship to each other makes sense.

As for wasting a vote, actually that article is one that has pretty much cemented my view to vote for GJ not Romney nor Obama. Somewhere, sometime, we as a people need to express our displeasure with the two parties and their comical platforms and groupthink. I choose to make my stand now. Hopefully, more and more people will join me and the two goliaths will have to take notice of those that are unhappy with their rigid extremist platforms.

No, I'm an moron and I haven't heard anything on the tv over the past year, so I have no idea what the capital gains tax is, please explain it to my idiot self.

It's pretty clear Romney isn't releasing the 2009 and earlier tax returns because he's hiding that he probably paid 10% or less. If they were so similar to his 2 most recent returns, why would he care? Everyone already saw he paid that low rate over the 2 years, why not let people see that is was like that for a while, it wouldn't hurt him. What would hurt him would be clear sings that he finagled his way through 1000 loopholes to pay a pittance in taxes.

Also, giving to the Mormon church doesn't count as charity. That's enabling a cult. If he gave 100's out to homeless people I'd think it was more of a help to society than handing the Mormon church cash.

I know you're just trying to express your opinion, but you made a point to make it seem like I am ignorant or something and I don't appreciate that. I may be many things, but I am not ignorant.

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No, I'm an moron and I haven't heard anything on the tv over the past year, so I have no idea what the capital gains tax is, please explain it to my idiot self.

It's pretty clear Romney isn't releasing the 2009 and earlier tax returns because he's hiding that he probably paid 10% or less. If they were so similar to his 2 most recent returns, why would he care? Everyone already saw he paid that low rate over the 2 years, why not let people see that is was like that for a while, it wouldn't hurt him. What would hurt him would be clear sings that he finagled his way through 1000 loopholes to pay a pittance in taxes.

Also, giving to the Mormon church doesn't count as charity. That's enabling a cult. If he gave 100's out to homeless people I'd think it was more of a help to society than handing the Mormon church cash.

I know you're just trying to express your opinion, but you made a point to make it seem like I am ignorant or something and I don't appreciate that. I may be many things, but I am not ignorant.

Perhaps if you didn't make unsubstantiated assumptions and exagerations as part of your argument, I wouldn't have been so terse.

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I've heard this before and it's bullsh!t. Income is income, it shouldn't doesn't matter if you are using money that was once taxed to make it. My saving's account doesn't get taxed at a lesser rate even though it's "taxed" money. When I go to the store and buy something I can't opt to pay a lower sales tax because I'm using after tax dollars.

The reason for the low tax rate of long term investments is to encourage people to do it rather then just sit on it.

I agree that Romney's federal income tax is a non issue to his candidacy, I don't expect someone to pay more in taxes then they technically owe, and I don't hold it against him. But it does highlight a problem (if you should see it that way) where the very rich have revenue streams taxed at lower rates. A simplified tax code would solve this problem, even a 20% flat tax (with a simple average 30k deduction) could possibly work.

Yes, but you don't necessarily need a very high national sales tax. You could just revert to the tax structure we had under Clinton. I am not suggestion that is the be all end all fix, but it's start to a balanced budget.

Well if you say its bullsh!t it must be true.

Anyway, instead of disagreeing with your explanation, I'll agree that it could be at least part of the explanation : the incentive to invest vs leaving money idle. No matter what, the difference in the tax rates was intended to encourage certain behavior just like giving tax credits for buying an electric vehicle. I'm not sure from your post if you agree with that incentive or not but regardless of the cause (preventing multiiple taxation or encouraging investment), I understand and think it is a noble cause.

I'd prefer a flat tax too. Just consider the ramifications however: impact on charitable organizations which depend on contributions, a probable housing crash again with the elimination of the mortgage deduction, the probable big hit to low income 5+ kid households that currently have multiple deductions for dependents. I understand your arguement concerning effective tax rate but the other side of the coin is the absolute tax paid which currently is overwhelmingly weighted towards those like Romney right now. Its not an easy answer but tax rate isn't the only thing to look at.

Edited by devilsadvoc8
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Well if you say its bullsh!t it must be true.

So maybe i was also being a little terse (to steal your word) :P I just don't buy that argument. The new money you are gaining was never taxed so it should be fair game, even if the money used to make it was taxed. If you put 500k into a stock, and make 600k, you aren't taxed 15% on 600k, you are taxed 15% on 100k. Where exactly is this supposed "double taxation"?

Anyway, instead of disagreeing with your explanation, I'll agree that it could be at least part of the explanation : the incentive to invest vs leaving money idle. No matter what, the difference in the tax rates was intended to encourage certain behavior just like giving tax credits for buying an electric vehicle. I'm not sure from your post if you agree with that incentive or not but regardless of the cause (preventing multiiple taxation or encouraging investment), I understand and think it is a noble cause.

Truthfully I don't know if it's a net gain or not. I'm not an economist, and I don't have the deepest understand of how the extra liquidity trickles down, my guess is it's one of those complicated things with no direct answer. Ultimately though for simplicity I would prefer all income be treated the same.

I'd prefer a flat tax too. Just consider the ramifications however: impact on charitable organizations which depend on contributions, a probable housing crash again with the elimination of the mortgage deduction, the probable big hit to low income 5+ kid households that currently have multiple deductions for dependents. I understand your arguement concerning effective tax rate but the other side of the coin is the absolute tax paid which currently is overwhelmingly weighted towards those like Romney right now. Its not an easy answer but tax rate isn't the only thing to look at.

Any tax code change would be phased, I think that would help mitigate a lot of shock value. Say, in X years you will have an option to pay a flat tax, and then Y years later it will be mandatory or something. Charities will be fine IMO, the worse they would see is a 20% drop off in givings, and I doubt even that much. Whatever we come up with for deductions would basically have to cover what the average people are getting now.

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