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Originally posted by NashBama:
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I am liking Obama more and more every day... he is starting slow, but I think he will definitely be someone to contend with in finality...
GOOD FOR OBAMA!!!!
Really? Here's something for you to think about Kindred.
Feb. 06, Tax Reconciliation bill comes up for a vote. This bill has $70 billion in tax credits and cuts, most for the
working class and small business
penalizes oil companies for over inflating their profit margin, and provides $21.9 billion for
veteran's health care. Sounds good right? Obama, your Democrat who's looking out for the common people, voted
No on this bill.
http://votesmart.org/issue_keyvote_detail.php?vote_id=3795&can_id=BS030017Please research your politicans before you support them. This website is a good way to look up everyone's track record on any issue in a non-partisan way.
NashBama, I read what you said, makes sense until I realize you think I can spend my tax return. FIRST OFF IT IS A
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REFUND
not a return. They are not giving you back your taxes, they are refunding your overpayment. Not only are tax refunds not the return of any taxes owed, they are a kind of "forced" savings without interest payments, and they become taxable income if they are refunded any later than the tax year in which they were paid. Tax refunds are the result of overpaying your taxes in your withholdings. Secondly, the cost of the war should be pay as you go, unless you like the idea of an upward spiral in the National Debt that puts your grandchildren at risk of not having enough money to pay for your children's retirement.
I cannot understand how the people who make the rich richer fail to grasp that the bills we don't pay today come due in the future.
You consistently misstate the distribution of wealth in the country, pointing to how the top such and such percent pay the greatest part of the taxes, without also adding that they have and even greater proportion of the income than the others.
This may exemplify the facts for you.
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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - As a whole, people living in the United States in 2001 were richer, earned more money, owned more stock and had debt levels that were less as a percentage of total assets than in 1998.
But not everybody enjoyed similar increases in wealth and income nor did everyone enjoy more manageable levels of debt. In terms of net worth, for example, the highest earners saw the biggest improvement by far.
Those are just a few of the findings from the Federal Reserve's triennial Survey of Consumer Finances, results from which were released Wednesday. From May through December 2001, the Fed surveyed 4,449 families as a representative sample of the 106.5 million families in the United States at that time.
http://money.cnn.com/2003/01/23/pf/millionaire/fedsurvey/
Of course, the argument that the figures are 6 years old is also meaningful. Here is the 2004 report's opening paragraphs, Money Magazine did not make an article available on these results
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Recent Changes in U.S. Family Finances:
Evidence from the 2001 and 2004 Survey
of Consumer Finances
Brian K. Bucks, Arthur B. Kennickell, and Kevin B.
Moore, of the Board’s Division of Research and
Statistics, prepared this article with assistance from
Gerhard Fries and A. Michael Neal.
The Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer
Finances for 2004 provides insights into changes in
family income and net worth since the 2001 survey.
The survey shows that, over the 2001–04 period, the
median value of real (inflation-adjusted) family
income before taxes continued to trend up, rising
1.6 percent, whereas the mean value fell 2.3 percent.
Patterns of change were mixed across demographic
groups. These results stand in contrast to the strong
and broad gains seen for the period between the 1998
and 2001 surveys and to the smaller but similarly
broad gains between the 1995 and 1998 surveys
I had to go to a pdf file from the Fed itself.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/PUBS/oss/oss2/2004/bull0206.pdfIf you go there, and look at the 1998 to 2001 chart, and the 2001 to 2004 chart, you might just stop with the nonsense about how well American Consumers are doing on average, or when compared with the wealthiest 10% of the population. FIGURES FOR 2007, will be made available sometime next year. The survey will be done between May and December of this year.
I don't think the figures are going to support your argument concerning how well we are doing as a middle class.
One additional clarification for you INDOCTRINATED SHEEP WHO ARE BOWING TO THE WOLVES.
THE 1998 TO 2001 DATA ARE FOR THE PRE TAX CUT YEARS. Since the Bush Tax Cuts and the war in Iraq, the squeeze on the middle has been getting worse.