On the way home, my pal Ron's wife Jane (definitely a hard-core Cardinal fan!) wanted to listen to the game on the radio. We quickly found that none of the stations that the car radio could pick up were carrying the game. So I fired up the iPad (which I had brought along for general resource reasons) and searched for Cardinals' stations on the Listenin app that I had downloaded previously. Interestingly, none of the regular Cardinal stations seemed to be broadcasting the game. But the Google search got me to ESPN radio, and we picked up the feed clear-as-a-bell. Hmmm. So there seems to be some broadcast-rights thing going on with these post-season games. And ESPN wants to make sure that listeners are hearing their commercials. Another example of, it's always about the money!
Here's the full email that I received yesterday from 3 asking about a taxation point that arose in the VP debate on Thursday night:
as an accountant and a small business owner - any clarification on this for the peanut gallery?
RYAN: "This one tax would actually tax about 53 percent of small-business income."
BIDEN: "Ninety-seven percent of the small businesses in America pay less — make less than $250,000."
THE FACTS: Both are correct, but incomplete, when sizing up the effect on small business of raising taxes for individuals making more than $200,000 and married couples making more than $250,000, as Obama wants to do. Republicans say that would hit small-business owners who report business income on their individual income tax; Democrats say the overwhelming majority of small businesses would not be affected.
According to a 2010 report by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the official scorekeeper for Congress, about 3 percent of people who report business income would face a tax increase under Obama's plan. That support's Biden's point.
The same report says those business owners account for about half of all business income. That supports Ryan.
My response, which is hardly news:
I'd guess that how people will want to interpret the correct answer here will depend on philosophy rather than math. Actually, "political sentiment" captures the debatable point rather than philosophy. The Democrats, generally, favor higher taxes on the wealthy, because 1) they think that the wealthy can afford it without adversely affecting their lifestyles, 2) they believe that "fair share" actually means that "0" is the right number for lots of folks, and 3) taxing the wealthy plays to their political base.
(Side bar: the O Administration has struggled with the definition of "wealthy", as in $200,000, or $250,000, or most recently from Biden the Wiz, $1,000,000. (Kind of like their various explanations for the recent Benghazi mess, but I digress.) We do know that wealthy does not mean the Average Joe or Joette making $50K or less, has a couple of kids and is not getting ahead of the game.)
The Republicans, generally, want some course correction to get the Federal Government math to work better. However you slice and dice the statistics, you find that a smaller group of folks pay for a larger relative portion of total expenditures. Whether its 3% or 20%, "the wealthy" are carrying a bunch of water.
I am on the side of the argument where Eating the Rich is not the answer. Most of my clients fall into a wealthy category. (Maybe I do too, although raising and educating four girls has put a serious dent on that math!) Virtually all of these clients have a resentment against higher taxes to pay for entitlements, the bureaucracy system, and welfare programs that run un-checked deficits...and for which there are no plans to righten the Ship of State.
Trying to play the "Heartless Card" on the people who want fiscal restraint is the stuff of political campaigns. Taxing the Rich may be a cry to rally the base, but to dis-incentivize the very people generating the government's revenue (through taxes) to pay the bills (government jobs and programs) is bad business, and is definitely bad for business.
So there ya' go, 3.
Maybe more later.
BCOT
1 comment:
One of our political parties can't get past the idea that, by letting business owners keep more of their income to hire more employees or buy new equipment or stuff it in their mattresses, that some of those business owners might make more than a college professor or registered nurse or professional politician. They might be millionaires, even.
And both political parties are guilty of sculpting tax regulations and targeted federal spending toward their buddies. Occam's razor there would be a flat or FAIR tax.
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