This man is a nuts

[Rupert Pupkin]

I agree that most people in this country think we need to make some changes in Iraq. They don't think we should withdraw. They just think we need to make some changes. Most people in government think the same thing. Even President Bush thinks we need to make some changes. That's why he has hired a new Sec of Defense.

[Downthestretch55]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I agree that most people in this country think we need to make some changes in Iraq. They don't think we should withdraw. They just think we need to make some changes. Most people in government think the same thing. Even President Bush thinks we need to make some changes. That's why he has hired a new Sec of Defense.

So...hmm...what has he been "deciding" for the past four years?
Or, hmm...is this an admission that there really wasn't a "plan" to begin with?
There certainly were plenty of lies.
Where are his clothes?

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Downthestretch55

So...hmm...what has he been "deciding" for the past four years?
Or, hmm...is this an admission that there really wasn't a "plan" to begin with?
There certainly were plenty of lies.
Where are his clothes?

They had a plan but the insurgents have severely disrupted that plan. It is obvious that the Administration totally underestimated the strength of the insurgency.

I don't think there were any lies. A lie is "a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive." The fact that they never found any WMDs does not mean they lied.

[Downthestretch55]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

They had a plan but the insurgents have severely disrupted that plan. The Administration underestimated the strength of the insurgency.

I don't think there were any lies. A lie is "a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive." The fact that they never found any WMDs does not mean they lied.

Plan??? Huhh???
Are you making yet another excuse?
False statement? Does that include trying to tie Saddam with 9-11?
They didn't lie???
It figures.

[Downthestretch55]

Powell seems to have a better grasp, and he wasn't a member of the ISG.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...jU0&refer=home

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Downthestretch55

Plan??? Huhh???
Are you making yet another excuse?
False statement? Does that include trying to tie Saddam with 9-11?
They didn't lie???
It figures.

I think Bush did think that Saddam may have been involved with 9/11. If you remember, that guy Richard Clarke said that Bush kept asking him to see if he could find evidence of Saddam's involvement with 9/11. Why would Bush have kept asking him, if Bush was not convinced that there was a connection? If you remember, there were reports that linked Muhammad Atta to some Iraqi intelligence officers. At one time, they were pretty confident that those reports were accurate. Later on, they realized that they could not confirm the accuracies of those reports.

So once again, something is only a lie if the person saying it knows that the information is false.

[Downthestretch55]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I think Bush did think that Saddam may have been involved with 9/11. If you remember, that guy Richard Clarke said that Bush kept asking him to see if he could find evidence of Saddam's involvement with 9/11. Why would Bush have kept asking him, if Bush was not convinced that there was a connection? If you remember, there were reports that linked Muhammad Atta to some Iraqi intelligence officers. At one time, they were pretty confident that those reports were accurate. Later on, they realized that they could not confirm the accuracies of those reports.

So once again, something is only a lie if the person saying it knows that the information is false.

Rupert,
Seems to me that you DO really want to know.
Heck, most decent Americans would like to know more about the war they were sold...and bought.
Truth in advertising? Nahh...doesn't play too well in DC.
Too bad so many kids had to die for it. Both theirs and ours.
Just my take...cause "it figures"...Bush was looking for an excuse (rationale) for the invasion. Lots of crude (2nd largest in the world) was up for grabs.
Cheney was the puppeteer (Halliburton, pipelines, military supply, no-bid contracts).
The "cheerleader" did his best. He even landed on the flight deck of the A. Lincoln to tell us all 1368 days ago that the "mission" had been "accomplished".
Too bad that it hasn't been...but "it figures".

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I partially agree with you. It is true that the government is not always doing what its constituents want it to do.

On the other hand, I think you are way off the mark with your other comments. I don't think there is any specific strategy that 70% of Americans would agree on in Iraq. However, there have been several startegies presented by people in government. I do think that 70% of the population would support at least one of the approaches presented. That is my point. My point is that the bipartisan, mainstream ideas in Congress usually cover the viewpoints of mainstream America.

With regard to the wiretaps, if you explain to people exactly what is being done, I think the vast majority of Americans are in favor of the wiretaps. Our government is only wiretapping the phones of people that have been communicating with terrorists. Who would possibly be against us tapping the phones of people who have been communciating with terrorists?

With regard to what is going on at Gitmo, I would have to think that the vast majority of Americans are ok with what's going on. We may not like it, but if it may save lives then I think people are willing to give our government some leeway. Have you seen any indication that a large percenatge of Americans are against the interrogation techniques used? By the way, you also need to consider that there are plenty of people out there who will simply be against a policy for partisan reasons. For example, let's say that there is 35% of the population who claim that they are against our interrogation techniques. you have to remeber that many of these same people will have no problem with those exact techniques if a Democrat was President. There is major hypocrisy in both parties. There are plenty of Americans in both parties that will complain about a policy if the policy is initiated by the other party. For example, there were plenty of Americans that were complaing when Clinton was bombing Kosovo. Many of those same people that were complaining would not have been complaining if it was Bush who was bombing Kosovo.

Hey, Rupert,

Yes, I do agree that the majority of Americans fall somewhere in a middle area on politics (and yes, I too imagine you and I would probably find more common ground than difference between us), but I think the original statement brought up for debate was that there was little difference between the current Democratic and Republican party, and there I disagree. In the 1950s, I would agree with you-- really, right up until the Republicans aligned themselves with the Religious Right (credit Reagan for that). Since then, I think there's been an extremism creeping into Republican leadership. At this point in time, I absolutely see a difference in the agendas of the two parties (and I think a lot of those people have confused capitalism with Christianity). In the future, they may seem fairly similar again, but not right now. And Bush has accelerated the influx of religion in the Republican party, and I think the party is starting to pay the price for it, because religious faith is inevitably marginalizing because it works on a precept of "my faith is right and yours is wrong." (Unless you're a pagan, but they can't even get a crummy pentacle on the graves of pagan soldiers, so clearly no one's listening to pagans). And saying "I think lots of Democrats wanted a cut in the capital gains tax" is not the same as Democrats spearheading an effort to cut it, because "I think" isn't proof. So until such time as they do push for it, we have to assume they don't.

I find it very, very hard to believe most Americans would approve of Gitmo. What I find interesting (and depressing) about the state of our nation is the lack of interest most Americans seem to have in Gitmo, or the FBI whistleblower who was mistakenly imprisoned and then tortured for three months until the Army realized their mistake, the end of habeus corpus, or really, Iraq (how many Americans know the difference between a ****e and a Sunni?), although most people seem to be aware we're over there, anyway. And I think it's because the average American doesn't feel himself or herself personally affected by it. And if it doesn't directly affect us, we don't care. Bring back the draft, and you'll see how fast Americans start caring about Iraq. And it may be the only option, if Bush is determined to send more troops over. Which, for the record, I do think is necessary if we're to make an attempt to stablize what we've done before we get out, but I don't think we have the troops, so I think it's like saying, "I should pay off my parents' mortgage with my lottery winnings." Sure. Except I don't have any. And I don't feel I have the right to demand other people's sons and daughters get sent over for what I think is a lost cause.

Regarding income levels and taxes on capital gains (not your post, Rupert; another poster)- no, I'm not wealthy, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to have an opinion on whether the wealthy should pay more in taxes than the middle-class and poor. Of course they should; they have more money. A family making $25,000 a year still needs a place to live, food to eat and money to pay for the doctor. And last I checked, the price of a cheeseburger wasn't staggered according to income. So, proportinately speaking, the low and middle-income pay a far higher percentage of their income towards essentials-- food, housing, health care, than do the wealthy. Which amounts to an tax on the poor and middle-class. It's why I favor raising the wealthy's income tax before I do state sales tax-- a larger proportion of the poor and middle-class income goes to sales tax than does the wealthy. Especially in a state like Arkansas (as Danzig pointed out) where even food is taxed.

Tax rates have risen and fallen throughout our history, but it seems to me the rich always seem to have enough for multiple houses, cars, and clothing that costs more than I make in a year. I don't have sympathy for pleas of overtaxation from people who own more than one home, and certainly not from people whose main income is off of dividends from stocks-- they're not even working for that money. They've got multiple homes, cars, servents, etc. They can afford to pay more of that disposable income so the government can keep running. So they have four homes instead of five. Cry me a river.

And yes, I own stocks and bonds. Not a lot, but I do. And I don't resent being taxed on them. I consider myself lucky enough to be able to set a little aside every month for retirement and long-term emergencies every month. So tax me on them. S'okay with me.

[GenuineRisk]

Here's a transcript of a statement to the Joint Economic Committe on the flat tax. It's old- 1995, so the tax rates on the wealthiest are lower now than they were then, but the gist of the argument still holds:

http://www.ctj.org/html/tjmjec.htm

The most interesting thing about the flat tax is that it says interest would not be taxed. Which means those that live off of investments (mostly the super-rich) would pay no income tax, while those of us who work 9-5 would pay tax. Isn't that interesting?

[Danzig]

i think the biggest hurdle to a flat tax or national sales tax is the earned income tax credit. they'd have to figure out another way to take my overpayment in taxes and give it to someone who paid none, but somehow still deserve a (cough, cough) refund.

[Danzig]

i have a book here about 'hitlers pope'. that's the title at least. excellent book. the author originally decided to write the book to defend pius xii. vatican allowed him access to a lot of documents--and that's when he found that he couldn't write anything defending the pope--and the vatican was none to happy to find they had helped someone write something like that!

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Danzig188

i think the biggest hurdle to a flat tax or national sales tax is the earned income tax credit. they'd have to figure out another way to take my overpayment in taxes and give it to someone who paid none, but somehow still deserve a (cough, cough) refund.

No, the biggest hurdle for the flat tax and national sales tax is that it will raise taxes on the poor and middle-class and lower them on the wealthy, and reduce them to zero for members of what a lawyer I know refers to as, 'The Lucky Sperm Club" (those people who inherit their wealth and don't work, but live off dividends). The EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) is actually an incredibly effective program for lifting working families just above the poverty level (you have to be a working head of household, so teenagers and the unemployed can't qualify). From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_Income_Tax_Credit

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

No, the biggest hurdle for the flat tax and national sales tax is that it will raise taxes on the poor and middle-class and lower them on the wealthy, and reduce them to zero for members of what a lawyer I know refers to as, 'The Lucky Sperm Club" (those people who inherit their wealth and don't work, but live off dividends). The EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) is actually an incredibly effective program for lifting working families just above the poverty level (you have to be a working head of household, so teenagers and the unemployed can't qualify). From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_Income_Tax_Credit

I think a combination of some type of flat tax and national sales tax could work.

Here is what my idea would be. We could have a national sales tax of around 5%. There would be no income tax for people in low tax brackets. So if you only make $30,000 a year, you would pay no income tax. The only tax you would pay would be the sales tax. So even if that person spent the entire $30,000 that they made, that means that they would only be paying a 5% tax on that. That's not too bad.

For people making $100,000 a year, you could make them pay a 10% flat income tax in addition to the 5% sales tax. For anyone who makes over $200,000 a year, you could give them a flat-tax of about 20%.

The most important thing would be to get rid of all of these tax right-offs. I've read some stories about some really rich people that pay practically no taxes because of all kinds of tax right-offs and tax shelters. We could have a flat-tax where you can't write anything off. If a person makes $1 million, they would have to pay $200,000(20%) in income tax and there would be no way to get around it.

[SentToStud]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I think a combination of some type of flat tax and national sales tax could work.

Here is what my idea would be. We could have a national sales tax of around 5%. There would be no income tax for people in low tax brackets. So if you only make $30,000 a year, you would pay no income tax. The only tax you would pay would be the sales tax. So even if that person spent the entire $30,000 that they made, that means that they would only be paying a 5% tax on that. That's not too bad.

For people making $100,000 a year, you could make them pay a 10% flat income tax in addition to the 5% sales tax. For anyone who makes over $200,000 a year, you could give them a flat-tax of about 20%.

The most important thing would be to get rid of all of these tax right-offs. I've read some stories about some really rich people that pay practically no taxes because of all kinds of tax right-offs and tax shelters. We could have a flat-tax where you can't write anything off. If a person makes $1 million, they would have to pay $200,000(20%) in income tax and there would be no way to get around it.

Sounds good to me. It also sounded good when Forbes used it as a policy platform a dozen or so years ago.

Problem is, the tax code is incredibly huge. How do you turn around a ship that big? I wish it would happen, but there's way too much top heavy interest group clout to let it happen. Besides the rich there are attorneys, accountants, banks, insurance companies, none of which would stand to benefit by massive tax reform.

It sounds great but unfortunately i think it's empty rehtoric.

[timmgirvan]

Originally Posted by SentToStud

Sounds good to me. It also sounded good when Forbes used it as a policy platform a dozen or so years ago.

Problem is, the tax code is incredibly huge. How do you turn around a ship that big? I wish it would happen, but there's way too much top heavy interest group clout to let it happen. Besides the rich there are attorneys, accountants, banks, insurance companies, none of which would stand to benefit by massive tax reform.

It sounds great but unfortunately i think it's empty rehtoric.

Yeah...just think of the jobless rate going from 4% to 10% with all those people outta work. The IRS codes weigh like 35lbs....burn the damn thing and start over!

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by SentToStud

Sounds good to me. It also sounded good when Forbes used it as a policy platform a dozen or so years ago.

Problem is, the tax code is incredibly huge. How do you turn around a ship that big? I wish it would happen, but there's way too much top heavy interest group clout to let it happen. Besides the rich there are attorneys, accountants, banks, insurance companies, none of which would stand to benefit by massive tax reform.

It sounds great but unfortunately i think it's empty rehtoric.

Yes, there would certainly be ton of people lobbying against it. The accountants and tax attorneys would certainly be against it. I'm sure that all the big corporations would be against it too. Alot of these big corporations don't pay much in taxes with all the loopholes in the current system.

[Downthestretch55]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

Yes, there would certainly be ton of people lobbying against it. The accountants and tax attorneys would certainly be against it. I'm sure that all the big corporations would be against it too. Alot of these big corporations don't pay much in taxes with all the loopholes in the current system.

Rupert,
You seem to know a lot more about this tax stuff than I do. I admit, I really don't know much about it. My accountant handles it.
So, just a question...aren't the "loopholes in the current system" there for EVERYONE??? What are these people complaining about?
They must be whiners.
Loopholes are for all!

[skippy3481]

Gr,
I have to respectfully disagree. I mind being taxed on my modest investments. What I don't like is the 90% of people on welfare who choose not to work. Yes, some people need it, and I'm all for that, but the majority don't need it and just abuse it. You should see some of these checks every month that these people get, its absolutely atrocious. Yes, some people get lucky and get born with money. But, some work their ass off for it as well. I'm not wealthy, but completely resent the fact that everyones solution to everything is to tax the rich more. And GR, you are more then welcome to voice your opinion, thats why america is great, but without being in the highest income bracket it just dosen't mean much to me. Not if you wanted to tax your income bracket more, It would carry much more weight, because it directly affects you. It's always easier to take someone elses money then your own. Just my opinion

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Downthestretch55

Rupert,
You seem to know a lot more about this tax stuff than I do. I admit, I really don't know much about it. My accountant handles it.
So, just a question...aren't the "loopholes in the current system" there for EVERYONE??? What are these people complaining about?
They must be whiners.
Loopholes are for all!

If you're just a regular guy that makes a salary, I don't think think there are too many loopholes. Even if you make a good salary of $150,000-$200,000, I still don't think there's much you can do. But if a person has their own company, there is all kinds of creative accounting that a person can do. And the more money a person makes, the more they can afford to spend on the best accountants and tax attorneys that know all the loopholes.

I am far from an expert on the subject, but I know that there is all kinds of creative accounting that goes on.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by merasmag

bright and dangerous...i would put him on the same level as iran's president in evilness...don't u know where his fortune came from?

Yes, I do know where his fortune came from. He was an incredibly successful businessman.

When he took over as CEO at Searle, they were $28 million in the red. When he left 4 year later, they were $128 million in the black. Searle is a pharmaceutical company known for products such as Dramamine, Metamucil, and an early birth control pill.

He left Searle and became Chairman and CEO of General Instruments, where he did an amazing job. General Instruments is a leader in broadband transmissions, distributions, and access control technologies.

After leaving General Instruments, he became Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, which is a huge pharmaceutical company.

Rumsfeld was incredibly successful everywhere he went. He was regarded as a guy who could go into a company and turn things around in a relatively quick time.