A billion dollars is six days in Iraq.

http://www.nationalprioriti...

If you knew more about econmics random, you might temper your temerity

with a little cognitive cellular level activity

giving a billion USD to layabouts as you often espouse does nothing for the economy

in point of fact it is a drag on the economy, further enticing the layabouts to............. <drum roll>

LAYABOUT!

Now, when it is spent through the MIC and Pentagon to send a msg to creeps like hocmydinnerjacket and khadaffi duck, then it has consequences economic you will never be able to fathom behind your fevered liberal profusely perspiring brow...........

And giving a billion dollars to war profiteers generates jobs, true.  So did 9/11. 

.

A trillion dollars is what the country's military loss in Iraq will eventually cost before Bush is forced out of the White House.

force him out

so you and fellow layabouts can do more

<drum roll>

LAYING ABOUT!

Makes perfect sense to me

The MIC and Pentagon, run properly, are very expensive.

The sticking of one's cranium in the sand and pretending defense is not necessary is much "cheaper"

Works too.........

For a few years

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans.

Mary's cute, but she won't get that much money. Certain parts of the Big Easy will be rebuilt, and certain - the previously crime-ridden - parts will rot and become ghost towns.  

Louisiana's Senators, Mary Landrieu (D) and David Vitter (R), have proposed legislation to provide about $250 billion in federal aid to help their state rebuild from Hurricane Katrina. The massive, 10-year plan, contained in a bill introduced on Sept. 22, includes about $180 billion in direct federal spending, Vitter said. The rest would represent the cost of various tax breaks.

But Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and several other GOP colleagues want at least some of the federal hurricane relief spending to be offset with spending cuts. Among their suggestions: a 5% across-the-board cut in discretionary spending other than defense and homeland security; and rescinding $24 billion in earmarked highway projects in the recently enacted highway and transit authorization bill…

…The Landrieu-Vitter package would draw most of its funds from federal appropriations, but they also are seeking 50% of the revenue from oil and gas leases off their state's coast. Vitter says that 50% share of lease payments recently has ranged between $3 billion and $4 billion annually. Those revenues would go for restoration of coastal wetlands and barrier islands as well as infrastructure.

The energy bill signed into law in August provides Louisiana with $135 million in oil and gas lease revenue annually for four years to be used for coastal restoration work

And giving a billion dollars to war profiteers generates jobs

Just not American jobs.

They are hiring Phillipinos and other third world nation people to work in Iraq.

Ah, but if that mattered we wouldn't be offshoring American jobs so enthusiastically.  As long as they do a good job, and...what's that?  Condemned due to shoddy workmanship? 

Spam Code GOFUP:  Grand Old F-UP.

Take another look at the list of taxes.  Although we can argue until our hair catches fire about when they were enacted, the majority aren't paid by the poor that the liberals claim to be fighting for.  And the ones they are paying, besides the fuel tax and those built into their utility bills are ones they choose to pay.  Cigarettes, and the tax on liquor that I don't see up there for example.  (Now I'm not saying the poor are chimney smoking alcoholics, I'm saying, these are taxes that are avoidable by not purchasing those items.)  But we do see the "Layabouts" purchasing those items with the tax money the rest of us are providing, so if they have to pay taxes on those items, what the heck.  At least they're paying "some" taxes.  When it comes to paying taxes the ones who pay the least cry more more more!  I have never missed a tax payment, nor will I ever, but I will spend a good amount of my remaining life figuring out a way to die and legally avoid the inheritance tax!

A billion dollars is just the stuff we've *LOST* in Iraq:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stor...

dg:  I will spend a good amount of my remaining life figuring out a way to die and legally avoid the inheritance tax!

Don't spend too much time on that problem, unless you win the lottery big-time.  The dying part in particular is easy.  As for the rest,

a) by dying you've already avoided the tax, and

b)  Most everyone's exempt anyway.

If you're really worried, die in 2010.  If you're still alive in December of 2010, be *REAL* careful around your relatives that month.

Don't forget Tom that the Republicans killed a Katrina rebuilding bill when it required at least 50% of the funds go to poor people. Once that requirement was removed, it passed. And how much ended up making it to the poor (and needy)? Less than 10%.......

The rest went to bureaucrats, "poor" people (to gamble with, get breast augmentations, bling, etc.), shysters, hookers, pimps, etc.......

You know

The "deserving" poor

When it should have gone to the "deserving" rich for the same purposes.

.

Like Diaper Dave Vetter, for example...

now you're getting it...............

except for Dave

The poor pay less in taxes because they don't have any money. I am reminded of the story of the late Sam Rayburn, speaker of the House from Texas, who in response to a group of constituents who were groaning about the income tax, said, "Hell, before you people didn't have any incomes."

Beware of politicians who say government is the problem. They inevitably are the ones who increase the size of government and use its largesse to enrich themselves and their already wealthy friends.

This is just so....so....taxing.

It's not the taxes that are the problem, it's how they are spent. You know, bridges to Alaskan Islands etc.

I have no problem with copious amounts of tax dollars going to the military, but it's bad enough that we taxpayers are charged 10 bucks for a 5 cent screw, without some yahoo going into a country that had nothing to do with 911, then planning to attack  another country that gave up their nuclear arms program 4 years ago.

Here's the question....hands please....how many people think that because we went into Iraq, there will be no more terrorism?

How many people actually believe that because we are in Iraq, America is safer?

How many think that the civil war combatants in Iraq, who by the way are causing all the damage, not the terrorists, are going to get into their fighting vehicles, 1987 Toyota pickups, and follow us over to American when we pull out.

Random, you're right, I should have made that clear...the poor pay out less in total dollar amounts, but considerably more, percentage-wise, than wealthier taxpayers.

Tom, the estate tax doesn't kick in until something like $6 million. Most of us, our heirs, won't have to worry about it. The ones demanding "reform"...constitute something like a couple of thousand estates.

The hue and cry over taxes has inevitably come from the wealthiest, and what we've seen in terms of "reform" has essentially shifted the tax burden FROM passive income (i.e., investments) TO working income folks. Like the vast majority of us.

Oh, and what the current so-called administration can't raise in taxes from the wealthiest...they borrow the difference. Obligating those who must pay the bill to huge debts in the future. And just barely more than half the voters thought electing that lying dweeb as their president was a good idea. The mind reels.

The big deal with estate tax isn't with large sums of money in an estate, it's with family owned and operated businesses, that have been in the family for multiple generations.

In the farming industry, it doesn't take much to go way over the 3M level. A big tractor costs several hundred thousand bucks. Farming is a slim margin business too. Lots of families are forced to sell their farms in order to pay the estate tax when the Patriarch dies. It isn't fair.

Even if they are able to pay out the cash for Estate taxes, it puts a farming operation into a position where they now have to borrow money in order to plant and maintain their crops for the next season. Unless they have several seasons of bumper crops and high market prices, this debt could spell the beginning if a long slow death for that farm.

Tom,

I've been through this one twice in the last 10 years or so. I've got first-hand experience (X2). It's heart breaking.

I'll assume that, since you're cutting and pasting from elsewhere on the web, that you have no idea what's' like to go through it. If this is true, I might suggest that you not pass judgment or profess knowledge in areas where you have no experience.

50% estate tax, along with all of the other "Death" taxes (yes, there are others along with Estate Tax) causes a lot of pain for a lot of people every year. I don't think you have any idea what emotional grief it causes families who are forced to sell the business that has fed, clothed and provided for multiple generations of an entire family. Often times, it's all they know how to do for a living. Now, they're placed in a position where they have to go to work for someone else and start all over. It breaks people. They begin to ask each other "What's the use?"....................................... .........

Nope, nobody wanted to cash out. Both times, the Attorney handling probate suggested that something had to give, because the tax bill would be $x,xxx,xxx.

It was either, each person borrow whatever they could, and hope that it would be enough, or sell the business, pay the tax bill and divy up what was left.

The first time, the whole operation was sold out of the estate because there was more there than just the business. Everyone agreed to save the family home place and adjacent property(it's sale wouldn't have covered it anyway). Unfortunately, now, everyone is working for someone else. There's no more family farm. It's sad, because the roots of that farm and family went back to 1907.

The second time, the family company (Plumbing, Pumping, Heat and Air) had to take in a new partner from outside the family. The money that they bought in with, paid the tax bill. Now, all of the family members are trying to squirrel away cash, to buy out this (outside) partner because he hasn't exactly been good for business.

This isn't the kind of problem that you want to take to probate court, unless you want the IRS and state to pick things to pieces. You'd better solve the problem before you get there. I think your numbers are flawed because of this. It happens a lot more than you think.

Benjamin Franklin supported the estate tax. Warren Buffett supports the estate tax. The idea behind it is to keep American families from  building a layabout aristocracy, and that each generation will need to make its own way.

Odd that those who support eliminating the estate tax also are the staunchest opponents of benefits for poor people.

ProgressivePete2 ,

That was a pretty heartless comment, coming from a liburl.................

How about 6 children with spouces and kids of their own, working the farming operation for a living? Trust me, nobody in that whole family drives an exotic car.

That farm was the livelyhood for 29 people who (except for the really young ones) worked there everyday.

It's pretty obvious that those with nothing have no idea what it takes to build and maintain something. If the shoe were on the other foot, you wouldn't be quite so liburl, or as willing to see the government take it away.

A 50% Estate Tax isn't fair.

Tom,

I'm well aware if where the ceilings are at, and when they'll change. It's still not right.