Bush is guaranteeing MASSIVE tax increases for the wealthy

[Atman]

Face it, lurking freepers, your Chimpy's policies are going to backfire on his 1% in a big way, because when -- WHEN -- BushCo finally loses his grip on power and the responsible adults are back in charge, tax increases are inevitable. There simply is no other way to raise the money needed to run our country and start working our way out of this horrendous fiscal mess he's created. And the only ones with any money now are Bush's base, the super-rich, and they've gotten so super rich under Bush that they'll have lots and lots to tax.

And they should be taxed to the freakin' hilt. 50's style taxes. Taxes on the wealthy so high that the poor bastards will be forced to live on their last several million dollars. It is time for someone else besides us to feel the pain Bush has caused.

As a "reward" or perhaps payback for the damage done to middle class America, taxes on lower income brackets should go down or be eliminated. Tax the living shit out of the super rich until they bleed green. Let the nasty GOP commercials come, we'll counter them with "YOU GREEDY BASTARDS" commercials and keep reminding America who raided the treasury...it wasn't Joe Sixpack!

[electropop]

1. It's the only way to fix the fecal fiscal situation.

Our treasury and our (former) middle middle class are in the crapper. The uber-rich have stolen our money and it's time to take it back.

[Horse with no Name]

2. Well there goes his 20% approval rating

(I don't believe it is 31%)

[Canuckistanian]

3. And eliminate the "alternative minimum" tax

There! You can stop bitching about being taxed to death, because the middle class is the one needing the tax breaks to stimulate the economy.

Not the rich who blow all their tax returns on foreign investments.

[meow2u3]

7. Fix it, don't nix it

Raise the minimum income/asset level the AMT kicks in, plus provide a total tax exemption for civil rights and personal injury plaintiffs who win their cases, and you'll have effective AMT reform.

The alternative minimum tax is designed to prevent fat cats from getting off scot free in the tax department. But the lawmakers who drafted the bill didn't foresee the massive inflation that would treat middle-class families like tycoons, nor did they ever think the typical upper middle-class family would be a dual income one. The law was passed during the breadwinner-husband-homemaker-wife era.

[Canuckistanian]

9. Um yes, that's what I meant to say

But I was referring to the middle class paying it. I defer to your obvious knowledge on the subject.

[bbinacan]

4. Oh yes,

I have a repug father I'd love to throw this at. Can you give me links to help my cause? Thanks.

[neoblues]

5. At the very least, full retroactive tax recovery plus interest!

They should be charged at at least the 1999 tax rate applied retroactive over the entire Bush terms with 23.99% APR finance/interest charges (or greater). Additionally, for those who reaped particularly high profits on their investments, such as those who own oil/energy company stocks and those who own KBR/Halliburton stocks who've enjoyed such massive profits at the public troughs, should receive taxes equivalent to reducing their 'profits' over this period to zero. Obviously, this re-taxation and restoration of justice must include taxes not just on the individual über wealthy but the corporations and businesses that have profited so greately. We should also tax the existing giant media companies into oblivion while simultaneously restoring the proper rules preventing such monopolistic ownership of radio, television, internet, newspaper and publishing outlets--thus ensuring the success of upstart smaller media businesses (which will both open the floodgates to the truth, news, investigative journalism as well as improve the quality of programming across the board).

Actually, I'm probably a little less radical than all that, but clearly a reckoning needs to occur and the unfair and harmful (to the nation as a whole and to average citizens in particular) "gifts" in the form of tax-cuts cannot be overlooked or "forgiven". No one's going to "forgive" the vast increases in the public debt that resulted from these "tax cuts"; nor even will the interest (hundreds of billions) we will have paid on the new debt be "forgiven". Someone must pay--and (a) it shouldn't be middle-class and poor citizens, or (b) our children/future generations. That is, those who pay should indeed be those who didn't pay their share and who profited most from the creation of the new debt.

"Permanent " tax cuts must be made impermanent.

The tax misunderstood as the "Death Tax", the Estate Tax must be fully reinstated. If anything, it should be made overwhelmingly large; it's purpose after all, was to prevent the growth and creation of an "Aristocracy"--families of great wealth, privilege and power who naturally come to dominate any country in which there is great disparity of wealth.

[beltanefauve]

10. Ah yes, the "Death Tax"

kind of that same Repub Orwellian-style doublespeak they use when they refer to themselves as,"pro-life". Why is it, that American workers pay payroll taxes on their earnings, but when someone, by accident of birth, has the good fortune to be born in a country where such an accumulation of great wealth is possible, and is handed down such a gift, that this is considered an outrage?

Greedy bastards!

[tkmorris]

11. I call that the "Paris Hilton Tax"

If this country were a meritocracy that woman would have to pay to breathe air.

[SoCalDem]

6. This is how republicanism WORKS, folks..

Every time they get a turn to "drive the bus", they drive it right to the edge of the cliff and just before it goes over, democrats have to wrest the wheel away, and end up repairing the damage to the "vehicle"..all the passengers must chip in, and they don't like having to pay when they have been getting a free ride..even IF it almost KILLED them.. ALL they remember is the part where the bus driver has to take up a collection to fix the bus...so they can continue the trip..

For the rest of the "trip", they do nothing but bitch at the driver and plot ways to try and take over the bus..

[Justice Is Comin]

8. 36 million bucks

an hour interest on the national debt. $10,200 a second. :mad:

[neoblues]

12. Now that's a decent "living wage"!

Heck, I might even pay off a credit card or two if I made that kind of money... Then... I'd buy/build/create my own massive media network having hired a thousand top lawyers to take full advantage of every hole repugs have made in the ownership rules so as to... well, build three or four larger broadcast stations surrounding every existing broadcast station, each complete with scores of investigative journalists on staff who receive "large" bonuses for every big story of government or political misbehavior... if need be, I'd resort to whatever legal, but aggressive tactics/methods to take over other networks/stations to the extent possible, but this would involve all media, newspapers, book/magazine publishing, radio, satellite radio, cable and satellite television, and internet service provision as well as related advertising and information sites... I could then say in all earnest "fair and balanced" coverage--it wouldn't even be necessary to be partisan Democratic since the simple "truth" is inevitably supportive of the Democratic platform and view. I'd both fund appropriate PBS programming and probably hire away many of their best talent (though I'd fund them to continue producing for PBS as well).

Then, or really concurrently, I'd invest in the creation of well-funded social organizations for Democrats, including an organizing of liberal/progressive law students (and scholarships for liberal/progressive students especially in journalism, law and government studies). Perhaps I could even afford to provide every liberal/progressive/Democrat in the country with their own computer (with fax/printer) and broadband internet access for free (even if or especially even if that means providing satellite broadband access--especially useful for Democrats in rural (and often "Red") areas).

Top advertising firms would be hired to generate pro-liberal, pro-Democratic issues and views... Movie/television production companies would be both hired and created to produce liberal and progressive thinking programs and products. Liberal authors and writers would be published whenever a quality product is presented.

Democrats would be organized and funded in every political contest in the country at the local, county, state and federal levels--and this time, they'd be provided fair coverage by the media.

Numerous think-tank and strategy organizations would be developed, funded and given missions. Likewise an anti-defamation organization would be developed and provided all due resources to fight the destruction of the English language as practiced by the conservo-rethugs in recent decades as well as to pounce upon and create massive public discourse over instances of false claims of "liberal bias" or any sort of slanderous rethuglican behavior (ie. swift boaters).

Ahh. If only it was I who owned the interest on national debt. Then, once the Democracy has been restored/saved and the middle-class rebuilt and the poor provided both assistance and opportunity and education... and the government has reinstated the separation of powers and proper regulations on businesses and the environment, and education has been made a priority, properly funded and provided liberally to all... and... and so on. I suppose that would mean that I also owned the actual debt (if I were the recipient of the interest on that debt)... if so, I could then easily enough forgive whatever's left and thus free our future generations of a burden they didn't earn and don't deserve.

Make no mistake, the culprits here are the Republican/Conservative/Religious Right/Right-Wing/Neocon types. Proper education and a media that delivers the truth in overwhelming portions would cure many of them, but regardless of how they may be fixed--the basic responsibility for the vast majority of the mess we find ourselves in is theirs. Some, a modest amount, belongs to us--for letting them succeed in creating the mess in the first place--but, by comparison, that's insignificant. If the world was a fair place, therefore, the majority of the cost for the restoration of sanity and prosperity to the nation should fall more heavily on their shoulders. That especially means that the über wealthy (especially rethugs) should be taxed till they'd be lucky to join the middle-class. Just my three cents.