This discussion was started in another forum and I though it might be good for the kitchen table. I have included my reply and look forward to yours.

Quote:
President Obama and Congress are about to allow the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy to expire at the end of 2010. That means that anyone earning above $250,000 a year will be required to pay more taxes. Do you think that anyone making $250,000 a year is rich?

Please post your answers in this discussion thread.

Do you think that anyone making $250,000 a year is rich?

Do you think that anyone making $250,000 a year is rich

YES - (1)

NO - (3)

Not Sure - (0)

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Total Votes: 4

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Jim Allen's Reply
This is actually a very good question. If i am a wage earner and not an employer or business owner then $250 grand a year in my neck of the woods is rich. IMHO

However, if I am a sole proprietorship type of business or an LLC. Then I am not rich my neck of the woods. I pay out salaries and other expenditures. I have overhead costs other than regular everyday personal and household expenditures. In today's world a small business with a $250,000.00 income is a struggling business because of the added burdens of taxes cloaked as administration and user fees. You still have many overhead costs far and above non business households in this bracket.

The thought of allowing these credits to expire in a downturn economy with this administration and congress is quite scary. As we all know they are redistributing our wealth on a global scale.

There is no American sovereignty in their actions. If they are allowed to continue in their quest, our poor will be poorer and more beholding to the government and its Czars.

Our middle class will be non-existent in the private sector but bulging at the seams in the public/unionized government employees beholding to their relationships with this administration and congress.

Our rich/elitist will be even more rich than before and their Largesse less due to the increased taxes and fees that feed this redistribution of our wealth. Which will create/cause a two class structure. It is the "Road to Serfdom". Read this short picture book and choose your answer wisely.

My answer is NO $250,000.00 household income does not classify you as rich or well off. Upper to middle middle-class is where I would put you. Depending on what part of country you reside in.

Quote:
This discussion was started in another forum and I though it might be good for the kitchen table. I have included my reply and look forward to yours.

Quote:
President Obama and Congress are about to allow the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy to expire at the end of 2010. That means that anyone earning above $250,000 a year will be required to pay more taxes. Do you think that anyone making $250,000 a year is rich?

Please post your answers in this discussion thread.

%%poll%%

Jim Allen's Reply
This is actually a very good question. If i am a wage earner and not an employer or business owner then $250 grand a year in my neck of the woods is rich. IMHO

However, if I am a sole proprietorship type of business or an LLC. Then I am not rich my neck of the woods. I pay out salaries and other expenditures. I have overhead costs other than regular everyday personal and household expenditures. In today's world a small business with a $250,000.00 income is a struggling business because of the added burdens of taxes cloaked as administration and user fees. You still have many overhead costs far and above non business households in this bracket.

The thought of allowing these credits to expire in a downturn economy with this administration and congress is quite scary. As we all know they are redistributing our wealth on a global scale.

There is no American sovereignty in their actions. If they are allowed to continue in their quest, our poor will be poorer and more beholding to the government and its Czars.

Our middle class will be non-existent in the private sector but bulging at the seams in the public/unionized government employees beholding to their relationships with this administration and congress.

Our rich/elitist will be even more rich than before and their Largesse less due to the increased taxes and fees that feed this redistribution of our wealth. Which will create/cause a two class structure. It is the "Road to Serfdom". Read this short picture book and choose your answer wisely.

My answer is NO $250,000.00 household income does not classify you as rich or well off. Upper to middle middle-class is where I would put you. Depending on what part of country you reside in.

Hi Him,

Great post. I totally agree with what you said and I don't think they will stop at the $250,000 figure when it's all said and done.. They are slowly tearing down our way of life and government and taking away our rights daily. I read or heard figures recently saying that Federal employees have increased to a ballooned number and at salaries much higher than in the private sector coupled with benefits worth $40,000 plus per year. The "Road to Serfdom" piece was great and an illustration of exactly what is going on. The poor have increased to 13 or 15% and with all the people out of work and so many more not sure how long they will be employed, people are becoming scared and that's when they can say "We are here to help you" Then it may be to late to change the course of where we are headed. If enough people wake up and a leader who stands by our Constitution and smaller government, etc. can be found perhaps this can be stopped. It will take a great effort. We can only hope and pray that it will happen.

Harry Findlay
http://www.12path.com/adlandpro7/

Thanks Harry and Peter for your participation and willingness to add your voice. Here is more news to add to the debt by this President zerObama. http://www.usasurvival.org/ck091710.html

By Cliff Kincaid -- September 16, 2010

In a classic case of misdirection, while the media are preoccupied with the fate of the Bush tax cuts, President Obama is preparing to attend a United Nations summit next week to endorse “innovative finance mechanisms”—global taxes—to drain even more wealth out of the U.S. economy.

A draft “outcome document ^[1]” produced in advance of the September 20-22 U.N. Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) commits the nations of the world to supporting “innovative financing mechanisms” to supplement foreign aid spending.

The term “innovative financing mechanisms” is a U.N. euphemism for global taxes. But the document actually goes further, praising the “Task Force on International Financial Transactions for Development” for its work on the subject of mobilizing additional “resources” for countries to achieve the MDGs. This is a body tasked with proposing and implementing global tax schemes.

“We consider,” the document says, “that innovative financing mechanisms can make a positive contribution in assisting developing countries to mobilize additional resources for financing for development on a voluntary basis. Such financing should supplement and not be a substitute for traditional sources of financing.”

In other words, the revenue from global taxes should be in addition to foreign aid spending.

The document recognized the “considerable progress” made in this area, an acknowledgement that an international tax by some nations on airline tickets is already in effect and producing several billions of dollars of revenue for world organizations to fight AIDS and other diseases.

In an article in The Christian Science Monitor, under the headline, “Small global taxes would make a big difference for world’s ‘bottom billion,’ ^[2]” the foreign minister of France and other officials of foreign nations endorse various forms of “innovative development financing.” One of their proposals is a tax on international currency transactions that could generate $35 billion a year.

The proposal, popular at the United Nations for decades and long-advocated by Fidel Castro, is called the Tobin Tax and named after Yale University economist James Tobin. Steven Solomon, a former staff reporter at Forbes, said in his book, The Confidence Game, that such a proposal “might net some $13 trillion a year…” because it is based on taking a percentage of money from the trillions of dollars exchanged daily in global financial markets.

He is referring to the fact that once such a tax is in place, it could be easily raised to bring in hundreds of billions of dollars or more a year to the U.N. and other global institutions.

Such financial transactions through banks and other financial institutions are commonplace on behalf of Americans who have stock in mutual funds or companies that invest or operate overseas. Hence, such a global tax could affect the stocks, mutual funds, and pensions of ordinary Americans.

The term “small global taxes” brought a stunned reaction from Senator David Vitter, when he was told of what is being proposed in advance of the U.N. summit. Vitter introduced Senate resolution 461, “Expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should reject any proposal for the creation of a system of global taxation and regulation,” to put the Senate on record against any such measure. He has vowed to maintain pressure on the world body to avoid implementing any of these schemes and thinks that the Congress has to use whatever financial leverage it has to frustrate U.N. demands for more power and authority in world affairs.

The Vitter resolution was sent to the liberal-controlled Senate Finance Committee, which declined to act on it.

Obama has been a major U.N. supporter since he was in the Senate and sponsored a bill, the Global Poverty Act (S 2433), to force U.S. compliance with the MDGs. Joseph Biden, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tried to get it passed into law but ultimately failed.

As President, Obama is in a position to actively promote global taxation measures and clearly has done so. The “outcome document” his administration has already endorsed will be formally approved at next week’s summit.

The document affirms the so-called “Monterrey Consensus” that committed nations to spending 0.7 percent of Gross National Product (GNP) on official development assistance (ODA), otherwise known as foreign aid. It says that “The fulfillment of all ODA commitments is crucial, including the commitments by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7 percent of gross national product (GNP) for ODA to developing countries by 2015…”

Over a 13-year period, from 2002, when the U.N.’s Financing for Development conference was held, to the target year of 2015, when the U.S. is expected to meet the Millennium Development Goals, this amounts to $845 billion from the U.S. alone, according to Jeffrey Sachs of the U.N.’s Millennium Project ^[3].

“We have fully embraced the Millennium Development Goals,” Obama told the U.N. in 2009.

END NOTES

[1] outcome document: http://www.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010/pdf/Draft%20outcome%20document.pdf

[2] Small global taxes would make a big difference for world’s ‘bottom billion,’: http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Global-Viewpoint/2010/0831/Small-global-taxes-would-make-a-big-difference-for-world-s-bottom-billion

[3] U.N.’s Millennium Project: >http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/