Posts Tagged ‘taxes’

I’m just pissed off and excited.

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Pissed off: I did my Federal and State Income Taxes. Would it be too much to ask that the Federal Government and the State of Iowa actually make these tax forms understandable to the average person? They keep using vague and ambiguous terms that could mean anything and nothing. State Governments have demanded that cell phone companies make less confusing statements. I ask the government to make a less confusing tax form. Or just dump income taxes across the board. Get rid of all of them. If we did that, we’d be able to fund the same government we had in 1999.

Excited: iPad. Technology is way cool. I mean, sure it’s just a giant iPod Touch with just more features and a bigger screen. But it’s very cool that something so powerful could be made so small and thin and light weight. Remember ten years ago when computer screens weighed a ton and would bend desks because they were so heavy and gigantic. Now my screen on my laptop might weigh 1/2 a pound. I dunno. Everything just keeps getting better and easier to use. Especially if you’re not using Windows. But I’m not buying one. I have a laptop and an iPod Touch and that’s plenty good for now.

Pissed off: State of the Union. Ya know, I’m too busy playing WoW to actually watch it. I heard they moved it to accommodate Lost. Hehehe. It reminds me of those ABC guys who thought it was horrible that Monday Night Football would preempt Bewitched back in the early 70′s. So yeah, if you want a reason to be pissed off at that whole thing, read Anthony Gregory’s take on it. He’s awesome.

UPDATE 11:50 PM: Also props to Judge Andrew Napolitano for pointing out why Samuel Alito was justified in mouthing “That’s not true.” during the State of the Union. At least he didn’t yell out “You Lie!” like an idiot.

Excited: Baseball Prospectus annual PECOTA projections came out today and they have the Pirates projected to win 70 games! Now that’s progress. Of course, PECOTA isn’t a guarantee of anything. I mean the same projections have no team getting above 90 wins outside the AL East and the Nationals winning 82 while the Marlins are in last place. Also last season, they gave the Cubs a 62% chance of making the playoffs while the Cards and Rockies had 18% and 14% respectively.

I just wonder if they win 70 or even 75, would people like Smizik and Chass see the Pirates making progress or would they still write their little bitch-fest columns on how the Pirates aren’t spending money.

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Bush Tax…cuts?

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

It’s amazing to me that during the Bush years and in the year since he left office that the one thing the media blames the recession on is the so-called “Bush Tax Cuts”. And now that Obama is president, we got the tea party people out there finally acting outraged about taxes because Obama and the Democrats might raise taxes. But you see, Bush raised taxes too. There were no “tax cuts” during the Bush years. The fact is that in the final budget submitted by Bush for FY2009, the federal government collected $2.7 trillion in taxes. In 2002, the federal government collected a little under $2 trillion in taxes. Um, doing the math here, it looks to me that Bush increased taxes by $700 billion annually.

So what exactly do the Paul Krugmans of the world mean by tax cuts? They just mean the amount of money that the federal government collected was less than they would have collected had Bush not rearranged the tax code. And we’re talking about a relatively small amount. They use the term tax cut the same way that they use the term budget cuts. You see, the government doesn’t cut the budgets for most programs. What gets cut is the expected increase in the budget. So if in 2004 a government program cost $5 million and they asked for a $6 million budget the next year and only got $5.5 million budget, they’d be the victims of budget cuts.

But it is incredible that on one side are the tea party folks who complain about tax increases when they just saw the federal budget and the amount of money collected by the federal government skyrocket in the last 8 years. And at the same time, the pro-government left complain about the anti-government bias on the right by pointing to Bush’s 2009 $3.1 trillion government.

Paul Krugman and other Keynesians loves blaming the economic downturn on “tax cuts” because they have a vested interest in making cuts in the government look like the bogeyman that caused the recession. The recession was caused by easy credit, excessive spending and low savings, all of which were encouraged and subsidized by the federal government. At the end of the day, the last 8 years just throughly debunked Keynesian economics as a viable economic theory, but it continues on because it empowers the people in the government and that’s why it just won’t get a whole lot better any time soon.

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Taxes and Death.

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

First there’s this cheery happy article from Paul Begala, one of the guys on that show Crossfire a few years ago when Jon Stewart went on the show and called him and Tucker Carlson “dicks”. Hasn’t changed much for him, he’s still a dick. Oh, we’re supposed to be happy and glad to hand over money on tax day, it’s patriotic. Barf.

Then there’s this much more analytical article about the tax rates during the Reagan-Bush II years. It’s pretty fascinating. For nearly a decade now, we’ve heard that Bush II has only cut taxes for the rich, well turns out that was a big stinking lie. Well here’s some of it incase clicking on the link is too much work:

During the Reagan years, the top bracket was lowered from @70% to 50%. But he also lowered the lowest bracket from 14% to 11%. In his second term, he lowered the top bracket to 28%. When Bush I (“no new taxes”) came in, he raised the lowest back up to 15%, but he eventually also raised the top to 31%. When the “Liberal,” “progressive,” Clinton took over, he kept the lowest (i.e., poorest laborers) bracket at 15%, but he raised the top from 31% to 39% (as he said he would).

Now here’s the kicker: Bush II (“Dumbya”) lowered the bottom rate from 15% to 10% (33% decline), yet only lowered the top bracket from 39.6% to 35% (@10% decline). In other words, while the lying Left claimed that Dumbya only gave the “rich” tax breaks, he actually lowered (percentage-wise) the lowest bracket by 3 times what he lowered the top bracket.

Yep, Bush II was ok on taxes. Too bad he never cut spending or else the economy would probably be a lot better off now. Also restoring the gold standard would have been a big help as well.

In other news, this blog has been hit by spam, since I have to approve comments, the very few loyal readers that are here haven’t noticed them. I’ve decided to add users in order to fight the spam man.

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This will activate your hilarity unit.

Monday, March 30th, 2009

First there’s a report on those cops in Missouri and all the trouble they cause. Great disclaimer at the end.

Then there’s James Bovard’s new article about Americorps and all the trouble they cause and tax payer money they waste.

Stupid Iowa State Income tax. I’ve finally made enough money to get in the black for next month. Lousy, free loading state. When’s the last time they did something for me?

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Credit crunch stupidity.

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

It’s amazing to read stories like this and at first be sorta sympathetic to the guy in the story. He’s apparently being treated unfairly by having a home mortgage and using his credit cards to buy stuff at the wrong stores. Credit rating should be based on your ability to pay it back. If historically you’ve never been late and paid it in full and on time, then your credit rating should be pretty damned good, if people who don’t pay their cards go to Wal-Mart and Mr. Goodcreditrating goes there too and buys stuff, he shouldn’t be affected by other people not paying their credit cards off. Oh well, doesn’t matter to me, I don’t even use credit cards anymore. Then of course, you get to the end of the story and they mention that he owes more on his house than it’s worth. That seems like a good reason to me to cut down his available credit, doesn’t it? That’s a hit on his financial viability.

In other bad financial news, I got a $400+ refund from the federal government only to see it all sucked up by the state of Iowa. Damn I hate this state. As though high property taxes, 6% sales tax and gambling revenue isn’t enough, the state of Iowa needs to put their leeches on our income as well. I was hoping to have a lot of savings done for next month and instead it’s all going to Des Moines to be wasted and thrown away, like usual. I should move to New Hampshire and not have to waste time with an income or sales tax. Of course I wouldn’t know where to live or work or anything….

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