Genocide
 

I mean that capital-C Christians have been relatively vocal about the tragedy of the Sudan, probably because Arabs from the north have been brutal to Christians in the south. I obviously don't always agree with the capital-C Christians, but on this issue they've been out in front of most everyone else.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

I believe it can, if you have 17 kids or something, so get a lot of standard deductions. But I don't know, because I hit it as a result of high state taxes.

It is flat, but rates are changed. Since the top rate on the AMT is lower, moving it up to say 31%, inserting a middle rate, and creating a low rate should be feasible. Of course, I don't know what the revenue effect of having a $58k standard deduction is (but apparently it will soon be more expensive to repeal the AMT than the income tax).

BTW, is your sister's friend the hot one on the tax panel?



http://www.rukeyser.com/ruk_template...Songers164.jpg

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Heh, no. And kids get you personal deductions, not standard deductions, right? I think.

Isn't having 3 rates basically what they did with TRA '86? And now we have a 4th? What you seem to be saying is that you think it would be a good idea to get rid of itemized deductions.

Pathetically, I'm not sure what "above-the-line" and "below-the-line" mean or I'd throw that in.

Have I mentioned lately that I miss Bob Dole?

Maybe I will reread Gucci Gulch.

ETA why the sudden tolerance for talking about tax?

More on IDs for Spanky:
 

Grits for Breakfast

He's an ACL analyst talking about some of the problems that can stem from centralization of identifying material. This sort of thing scares the crap out of me. Do you think that the government is going to have better security than Choicepoint, Lexis-Nexus, DSW, several Universities, etc?

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

From whom?

BTW Burger's wacky consumption tax ideas make it to the NYT.

And I don't know the answer on kids and AMT. All I know is reading about people with lots o' kids and getting the AMT despite their middle-brow income.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Oh right. You have always been the tax man. I guess.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

I think the tax people outnumber the others here these days. The rest of us have to put up with a tax discussion nearly once a week now.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

I started it by bitching about the AMT. Damned AMT. I'm not really interested in talking about tax policy, except to observe that the AMT's failure to allow a deduction for state taxes means that its burden falls disproportionately on people like you and me who live on the coasts. That seems wrong. If I'm paying that money to the state of California, I'm not clear why I should be paying taxes on it to the federal government as well. Damned AMT.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

I like to see a Lib complain about taxes. Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling :)

But I thought you benefit more from all the services the G provides - you should be happy to pay more taxes, no?

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

But you aren't upset that it doesn't allow a deduction for property taxes or sales taxes or whatever other taxes? I mean, shit, I have to pay fed AND state income tax on the Medicare/OASDI taxes I pay!!!! And I have to pay state income tax on my federal taxes!!! OH. MY. GOD.

It's not like people who live in the middle get to deduct whatever it is that is coming from them to fund their governments, but you on the coasts don't get to deduct your income tax, so you are at a disadvantage.

It amazes me how taxes make normally smart, rational people dumb. Money is powerful stuff.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

No one is happy to pay taxes. The difference is that libertarians think that this sort of selfishness is the basis for a political philosophy. I'm willing to pay my fair share, and I don't think it's fair that the AMT whacks those of us in states like California more.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Ah, selfishness, yes. It couldn't possibly based on cocepts of liberty (hence "libertarian" must be a misnomer). It's got to be selfishness.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

I am upset that it doesn't allow a deduction for property taxes, too. I get whacked there as well. I live in a state with higher taxes. I pay those taxes. Why should I pay federal income tax on the income that the state takes as taxes? Under the regular methods of calculating your federal income tax, I don't. It's only under the AMT that I do.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

How the HELL does it whack you more? What deduction people in other states getting to keep?

ETA shit to respond to your later post. Those other states are getting funded somehow -- maybe they just weren't getting to deduct whatever money they paid to fund their states because it's harder to pinpoint, or no one lobbied for it. You are not thinking logically. Why does CA need more money to run itself? Because the gov't here provides more services in some way? Why should the rest of the country subsidize CA's services by letting you not have to pay fed income tax on what your state has chosen to spend?

It would be more logical for you to complain that CA doesn't let you deduct federal taxes from your state income tax bill.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

You asked a five-cent question, so you got a five-cent answer. I am happy to debate the underpinnings of libertarianism any day, since I think it's based on an incomplete and flawed concept of liberty.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

I mean, I get whacked more by the difference between the AMT and the regular method of calculation.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Because the regular method gave you a big fat break by letting you deduct the huge amounts California's citizens, through their elected representatives, have chosen to spend on stuff in California. So suck it up.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

My question was asked in jest. I really didn't want to know the answer. Just having fun for the moment in bizarro world.

I think pure libertarianism is flawed as well.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

First of all, I understand that you do not believe what you are saying, and are simply arguing about this because I'm willing to argue with you about tax stuff. NTTAWWT.

Second, you are pretending that money taxed by state and local governments is money that I "have chosen to spend on stuff." But -- obviously -- it isn't. Most fundamentally, this is because I don't have a "choice." The state makes it for me. Also, I don't necessarily get "stuff" for this money. It may go, e.g., to pay off bonds issued by the state before I ever moved here, or to subsidize things for other citizens, or for a variety of other purposes I will never enjoy. This doesn't make the tax illegitimate, but it does mean that the money is fundamentally unlike income to me, in that it doesn't come into my account.

So bite me.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Lbertarians see you as free when your use of your real estate is dictated by rules established by unelected government officials who wear black robes and sit in courthouses, but not when it is dictated by rules established by elected government officials who sit in the legislature. So, whatever.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

I don't understand this.

Genocide
 

As I understand it, the Darfur situation is much different from the North South civil war. In the north south civil war, you have southern black christians who want to split from the the muslim north. But Darfur, is classic ethnic cleansing. The Arabs have decided they don't like the black muslims in Darfur and have decided to cleanse them out. It is similar to Kosovo. It is hard to systematically exterminate an entire race of people (ask the Nazis). We simply stop the Janjajubuweedplants from carrying out their genocide. Eventually they are going to run out of steam and give up. But now they think they are going to get away with it so they are continuing.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

That's what I've always thought.

When libertarians talk about property rights and less government, what they mean is, they like a common law regime of property rights -- i.e., property rights determined by judges, in accord with what a bunch of dead English people decided.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Oh, go suck your own left one. I am actually pretty serious. You can tell by the way I'm not fully admitting to being serious. All the states have to pay for gov't and stuff. Yours collects a lot of money through state income taxes which, because of a lot of lobbying, are normally deductible from federal taxes. States without a state income tax do it some other way -- but they've gotta be getting the money somehow, and it's hard to see how it couldn't be coming from the people in the state. And, those people aren't getting to deduct on their federal taxes whatever it is that their state is using to raise funds, unless it's property taxes, which I think (but fuck if I know, the AMT hasn't hit me yet) are added back in for AMT purposes just like state income taxes are.

Whatever. I think you are absorbed in your own world of self-pity (disguised as righteous anger) and aren't particularly susceptible to logic.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Pot. Kettle.

Income taken by the state as taxes -- income, property, whatever, that's not a distinction I'm trying to draw -- is not available to the taxpayer to spend, and the taxpayer does not necessarily get the benefits.

If the benefits of state and local government spending are what matters, then people in Wyoming and Alaska ought to have to pay federal income tax on imputed income from the government spending funded by the states' mineral royalties. But that's silly.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

It's not just property rights. But if you want to leave it to elected officials to determine your free speech rights, well "shut up, then."

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Can't one now deduct either state income taxes or state sales taxes (based on receipts or an imputed amount based on AGI)? Kind of makes both of you wrong.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Not my understanding of what they want at all.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Oooooh, buuuuuuurn. Probably you are right.

Nonetheless, in opposition to what Ty says, I am not bitter at all. He might do well to recall that I now live in the same state he does, with the accompanying high state income taxes. I'm just not a bitcher, since I don't see why state income taxes should be treated differently than, say, OASDI/Medicare taxes, which are taken out starting with the very first dollar you earn and the full freight of which are taken out of all income if you make less than $90k (or whatever the limit is) -- but we don't get to deduct those. Those dollars aren't available for me to pay my state or my federal income taxes with.

In any event, I think the whole "I used that money to pay taxes!" is one of those bad kinds of argument, the particular name of which I can't remember right now because the motherfucker assjack in the office next to me is talking so fucking loudly and I haven't had any coffee.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

It could be based on concepts of liberty. However, since all your arguments are essentially different versions of the "I have to give my money to someone else" song, I'll go with selfishness.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Club only used to like that, until I pointed out to him that the common law was based on the Statute of Wills, which was enacted in exchange for the first inheritance tax.

Reason no. 263.......
 

Another reason why I vote Republican:

Centrist Democrats oppose Central American trade pact

By JIM PUZZANGHERA

Knight Ridder Newspapers


WASHINGTON - The leaders of a group of centrist Democratic lawmakers announced their opposition Wednesday to a free-trade agreement with Central America.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., chair of the 41-member New Democrat Coalition in the House of Representatives, released a letter to President Bush asking him to renegotiate the Central American Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA. They said that the pact does not provide adequate protection for worker rights in the region and that the Bush administration needs to do more to help U.S. workers who have lost their jobs because of increased global trade.

"Free trade cannot consist of simply reducing trade barriers. As we pursue trade liberalization we have a responsibility to address the impact that trade deals will have on workers both here and abroad," Tauscher said. "Today we are saying to the president, `Stop.' Don't send a faulty CAFTA trade agreement to Congress."

Tauscher and her New Democrat Coalition co-chairs - Reps. Adam Smith of Washington, Ron Kind of Wisconsin and Artur Davis of Alabama - said Bush needed to use the clout of the United States to force the Central American countries to improve worker rights. They also slammed Bush for failing to provide enough money in his budgets to re-train U.S. workers whose jobs have gone overseas, and for failing to reach out to pro-business Democrats for input as CAFTA was being negotiated.

"We want to support trade," Smith said. "But we want to support trade that works for the people we represent broadly, for the workers who are struggling in the New Economy and for the workers internationally who are trying to rise out of poverty and into a middle class."

The trade deal between the United States and six Central American countries - Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua - is a top priority of the export-heavy high-tech industry. CAFTA would lower tariffs on tech products that range from 5 percent to 30 percent, saving U.S. exporters an estimated $75 million annually.

U.S. high-tech exports to the six countries totaled nearly $2.5 billion in 2003. High-tech executives hope CAFTA pave the way for a broader free-trade agreement through South America.

But without the support of centrist Democrats, who tend to be pro-business and have provided crucial votes for previous trade deals, CAFTA's fate in the House is uncertain.

Although Bush and the House GOP leadership are strongly in favor of CAFTA, some Republicans from regions with textile factories or sugar farms already oppose it out of fears of greater competition from countries with low-wage workers. Republicans have been hoping to lure enough Democrats to make up the difference.

The centrist New Democrats are usually the main source of such votes. Tauscher said that she will not actively urge her group's members to oppose CAFTA, but that the opposition of the group's leaders undoubtedly would influence Democrats who are undecided.

No date for a vote has been set in the House.

Neena Moorjani, press secretary for the U.S. Trade Representative's office, said Bush administration officials have held numerous meetings with New Democrats and have known passage of CAFTA "would be a tough fight."

House Republican officials blasted Democrats for not being more supportive of CAFTA during a news conference Wednesday before dozens of high-tech industry representatives to unveil the GOP's high-tech legislative agenda for the year, which include passage of the pact.

"We cannot do this by ourselves and you shouldn't expect us to," House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, said of CAFTA. "We'll put the 90 percent or so of our members on the line ... just like we always do, and then if this doesn't happen, it doesn't happen because of the Democrats who tell you they'll be there and never are."

Blunt told the lobbyists and tech officials - many wearing buttons urging passage of CAFTA - to withhold support from Democrats who proclaim they are pro-trade during campaigns but then vote against important trade deals.

The loss of centrist Democratic votes will force Republicans to try to offer deals to GOP lawmakers from states that produce sugar to allay their concerns over CAFTA and secure their votes, predicted Ralph Hellmann, the top lobbyist for the Information Technology Industry Council, a coalition of 31 top IT companies such as Intel and Hewlett-Packard.

The presidents of the six Central American nations will try to give CAFTA a boost next week, traveling together to 12 U.S. cities Monday and Tuesday on a tour coordinated by the White House and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The presidents then will join Bush for a meeting at the White House to promote the pact next Wednesday.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

If you think comprehensive healthcare must be provided to everyone as some sort of right, then Libertarianism will not fix that problem. If you think that the system should make health care, of various levels of quality and comprehensiveness, as affordable as possible and therefore available for purchase to as many people as possible should they choose it, then Libertarian solutions have a lot to offer.

FWIW, I go off strict libertarianism here, as I do with public K-12 education. I consider both to be matters of general public (rather than strictly private) concern, the neglect of which impose sufficient social costs that G intervention is justified (to some extent) to ensure access and force an expenditure of resources that is probably higher than freely-choosing individuals would allocate.

BR(Libertarianism is like Christianity - it's not that it's been tried and found wanting, but that it's been found difficult and so never tried)C

Reason no. 263.......
 

The article doesn't do a very good job of explaining why Dems like Ellen Tauscher -- who supported the bankruptcy reform bill and who has voted for free trade bills in the past -- have turned against this one. I'm guessing it has something to do with the administration's strategy of using free trade agreements to gut environmental and labor protections.

Putting aside Judicial nominations and steroids
 

I think I've made pretty clear on this board that I generally find market to be superior means of allocating goods and services, but with health care, not so much.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Not quite. My arguments are that I should be free to give MY money to those I see fit.

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

Club doesn't care if it's an unelected judge or an elected official.

Reason no. 263.......
 

Damn those centrist Democrats for not making up for the opposition from within the Republican party!! I mean, the nerve of these people -- how dare they not help us to get what we want, even when some of our own posture for their constituents so that they can keep their jobs!! Why do they hate America so?

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

I assure you, the common law significantly predates the reign of Henvy VIII.

The pre-SoW common law rules for the inheritance of real property were just different. There was significant interesting work in England from Domesday on figuring out ways, effectively, to will real property, generally with a fair amount of success. (A very significant portion of that was wealthy priests with families ensuring their children inherited, actually.) eta: (Very like gay couples currently have to contract around the status quo to obtain rights generally available to others.)

Now Maybe If We Cut Spending . . .
 

But the rights club really gets exercised about are property rights, so we can start there.