How Taxes Work

I knew we should have asked for separate checks!

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men -- the poorest -- would pay nothing;
the fifth would pay $1,
the sixth would pay $3,
the seventh $7,
the eighth $12,
the ninth $18, and
the tenth man -- the richest -- would pay $59.

That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement-- until one day, the owner threw them a curve (in tax language a tax cut). "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."

So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.00. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six -- the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, Then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being PAID to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man paid nothing,
the sixth pitched in $2,
the seventh paid $5,
the eighth paid $9,
the ninth paid $12,
leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59.

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man, but he, (pointing to the tenth) got $7!". "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, "I only saved a dollar, too, ........It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!". That's true!" shouted the seventh man, why should he get $7 back when I got only $2?" The wealthy get all the breaks!". Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late what was very important. They were FIFTY-TWO DOLLARS short of paying the bill!

Imagine that!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

Where would that leave the rest?

Unfortunately, most taxing authorities anywhere cannot seem to grasp this rather straight-forward logic!

(thanks to Norm Dowty)

Round round get around
I get around
Yeah

Thurs, Sept. 16, 2004
NEW JERSEY - A woman wearing a T-shirt with the words "President Bush You Killed My Son" and a picture of a soldier killed in Iraq was detained Thursday after she interrupted a campaign speech by first lady Laura Bush.
Police escorted Sue Niederer, of Hopewell, N.J., from a rally at a firehouse after she demanded to know why her son, Army 1st Lt. Seth Dvorin, 24, was killed in Iraq. Dvorin died in February while trying to disarm a bomb.


Sun, Aug. 29, 2004
NEW YORK - There were the pallbearers, spread out over six blocks, who carried 600 cardboard coffins draped with homemade flags as symbols of soldiers killed in Iraq.
Then there were those for whom the dead were much more than a symbol, such as Sue Niederer of Hopewell, N.J., who marched with a sign that read: "President Bush, You killed my son."

There are those who are proud of this woman who is traipsing about the entire country looking for every available venue to scream out that, "Bush killed my son". While I sympathize for her loss, I think it's ultimately a pathetic, political manipulation by the Democrats of an obviously distraught, if not outright unstable woman. To have that kind of energy to follow the President about and claim Bush himself actually killed her son is quite obviously obsessive and delusional at the very least, and you don't need to be a psychiatrist to see it. Her DNC "handlers" should be steering her toward grief counseling, so she can at least get to the point where she realizes the truth; that terrorists, a bomb, and even her son's choices and his own two hands were more directly instrumental in his death, than President Bush himself.

But don't expect that kind of compassion before opportunism on their part any time soon. As long as hysterics and abstraction are the methods that people are willing to use to continue this national debate, it will be nothing but a useless, screeching carousel.

Most people think she lost so much that it's inappropriate to approach her to disagree, let alone criticize her. Again, I condemn her handlers who are willing to trade a handful of votes at the expense of a poor, unfortunate woman's very grasp on reality.

How much does THAT cost, Terry McAuliffe?

A Primer in Democrat logic:

(1) The North Vietnamese were actually good guys when Kerry demanded in 1971 that the USA pull out of the Vietnam war and then they were conquered bad guys when Kerry needed a "I’m running for President" war hero record.

(2) Our trade embargo against Cuba was wrong when Carter became the first ex-President to publicly contradict a standing Administration’s foreign policy, but was OK when Carter himself enforced the policy while he was in office…and Clinton…and Kennedy, the Democrat who started the policy to begin with.

(3) We should never make a move to protect the United States without the tacit approval of those incredibly sophisticated French and Bush is at fault for not single handedly stopping 9/11 based on a 6 year long warning on one of his morning Presidential Daily Briefings.

(4) Men lose absolutely all vested interest in a fetus after they’ve donated their sperm, unless it’s accidentally allowed to make it to term, then the man becomes a "dead beat dad" if he doesn’t take responsibility and pay child support. You have the right to life, but only if you’re a convicted rapist and murderer, not an unborn baby (diapers…yuk!).

(5) Anti-religious bigotry is the last acceptable "ism" in America and you’re a Fundamentalist wacko if you disagree, unless you’re Muslim, then you’re terribly misunderstood and have every right to be enraged at America.

(6) We completely "Support the Troops", we just don’t support what they have actually volunteered to do, what they’re now doing, where they physically are located, or any poll points they happen to take away from our wonderful candidate, lovingly known as, "not Bush".

(7) Funneling Billions (yup, that’s with a B) into sex-education and free condoms/abortions has completely fixed and sanitized the underage sex and unwanted pregnancy epidemic in America. If statistics at all indicate otherwise, it must mean we need to lower our initial targeted age group again.

(8) The overwhelming majority of Americans were against the Iraqi war, even as our ambassadors, the Dixie Chicks made clear, but the whole world understandably still hates all of us because of only 4 men - Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld.

(9) If there’s anything that the sacrifice and hard work of our Founding Father’s taught us, it’s our God-given (er, sorry…Government given) right to free health care. To the small percentage of slimy corporate fat cats that actually will pay it for us (and so it’s not really free at all, but just to them), their likeliness of greediness and not really honestly earning all that money anyway is more than enough justification for an institutionalized, backwards caste system. Bill Gates alone could be made responsible for Washington state!

(10) One of the most time honored ways of wealth-redistribution is via multi-million dollar court judgements and settlements, as multi-millionaire and dreamboat John Edwards has so elegantly proven to us. The countless doctors who claim they cannot afford to work with this new system aren’t welcome in the business anyway.

(11) Even though Evolution is the most controversial scientific THEORY of all time, it must religiously (sorry) and fanatically be believed upon with all our heart. If science cannot be relied upon for justifying social engineering and disproving the existence of God, it will become nothing but a haven of irrelevant nerds.

(12) Unfortunately, a President lying under oath actually is an impeachable offense and one that will even get you disbarred in Arkansas. So make sure to keep saying it’s only about sex. Since thousands have died from another President’s lying to start a war for oil, we’re pretty sure the new impeachment trials should start up here any day now.

(13) Anything the public votes for, even in a vast majority, can thankfully be instantly erased by one single person with a black robe invoking the truly magical word "unconstitutional". Fortunately, since the Constitution is a breathing, living document, it can remain hip, with the times and clearly detail the rights of abortion on demand and even magically redefining 10,000 year old words…like "marriage". Isn’t that SO cool! The only time a court ever stepped over it’s so called "separation of powers" in the history of the world is when it "selected" Bush in 2000. And 99.999% of the time, only a Republican President can overstep the separation powers.

(14) Kerry’s service and medals won in Vietnam is a perfect basis for an entire Democratic National Convention platform and his election to the Presidency, but mentioning his anti-government/anti-war protests after his return from Vietnam is nothing but political manipulation and deception.

(15) Being a drug addict is a disease, as also is obesity, according to the American Medical Association. But f you suffer from both of these, and happen to be an influential conservative radio personality, then it’s freaking hilarious.

(16) Since the Supreme Court failed to properly "steal" the 2000 election for the correct guy, now Hillary thinks we should eliminate the Electoral College. It’s about time that California and New York made all the decisions for those backwards, fundamentalist wacko "fly over" states.

(17) Clinton smoking pot in college was secretly considered cool, but Bush using cocaine and alcohol completely crossed the line, because those are simply two things Democrats will never, ever partake in. Seriously. We won’t. What?

I was watching the John McEnroe show tonight and he was asking a British guest why they “drive on the wrong side of the road”. HAHAHAHAHAHA…ohhhhh…He followed with the comment (that was not questioned by the guest or “sidekick John Fugelsang”) that “look, the whole thing started when the Americans, the Wright Brothers, invented the automobile in 1903…”.
WOW. That’s right…then TinTin, Captain Haddock and Professor Calaculus were the first to land on the moon in 1954. Surprisingly, Fugelsang later in the show corrected him that “Bush didn’t out a CIA agent earlier this year, it was Robert Novak…”, which was a pretty big contrast in displaying his depth of knowledge from the “Wright Brothers” snafu.

I was a little confused by the following comment on the news tonight. A woman protesting downtown said that she asked her daughter serving in Iraq what she thought of her speaking publically against the war. She beamed as she said her daughter replied, "that she was over there fighting so that I could have the right to protest the war, and was proud to do so”.
OK...so…but…does this mean mom is protesting the fact that her daughter is fighting for her right to protest? I mean mom's protesting that her daughter is fighting for her right to protest that her daughter’s fighting for her right to…..OW…my head.

According to the local news, Ralph Nader Will Appear On Oregon Ballot. The reason that this is news is because his campaign got enough signatures to get on the ballot some time back, but the Democrats hotly contested this any way they could. This, of course, is because they strongly believe Nader could help Bush get re-elected by stealing votes from Kerry. So they “contested” it all the way to having thousands of the votes “invalidated because of irregularities on petition sheets”. This brought Nader to just 218 votes short of what he needed. Ooops! Nader’s camp fought back by taking the issue to court and won a ruling to get back on the ballot.
Of course Bill Bradbury, responsible for invalidating the petition signatures, insists it wasn’t partisan politics that motivated his actions. Successfully containing his snicker, he later that day intoned at a pro-Kerry rally, “We need to elect John Kerry! We need to elect John Edwards!”

Flippity floppity CNN

oVeR oNe tHoUsAnD ArReStEd ! ! !

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NOPE. That's NOT the headline on CNN. Don't get me wrong. That IS what's happened in the last two days to protesters in NYC, but CNN hasn't heard about it yet, I guess. With the obviously groundbreaking news that over a thousand protesters have been arrested , CNN spent most of the day with their main headline pointing out that Cheney is talking at the RNC tonight. Right now it's about Kobe's charges being dropped. Now they're becoming People magazine, I guess. I couldn't care LESS about Kobe's charges being dropped. I actually had to go to NPR's website to find SOME coverage of it. Now I think I know where the term news blackout comes from. Amazing. If over a thousand Republican protestors were arrested (ever notice it never is over 1000 on the right being arrested?), I'm betting they would have breaking/special coverage 24 hours a day, like the Rodney King/LA riots coverage.
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Jefford's a Maverick, but Zell's just a "zellout"

I thought it was interesting to see CNN ponder if Zell is a sellout for leaving the Dems to speak at the RNC, when I didn't remember similar coverage for Jefford's "defection". Isn't Internet search wonderful? (courtesy of their site):