The next president ?

---Let's see now...according to Krugman if I make $100,000,000 and pay 15% taxes I pay less tax than the guy who makes $80,000 and pays 20%. So, $15,000,000 is less than $16,000. ---Let's penalize hard work and genius and reward laziness and ineptitude. Lanny

I wish that I thought that the Republicans had a candidate that could actually win this election but unfortunatley this show is already over. I will be voting for whichever candidate stands the best chance of defeating our current "leader". But I have to say that we best get ready for the worst 4 years this country has seen yet. jmho

Obama here.

I still can't believe the Dems haven't found somebody to put up against bammy! :side:

I haven't decided who to vote for. I might throw up my hands and vote the NRA-ILA ballot.

I am sure the person that is inaugurated will be a lying deadbeat politician. Anybody want to take odds on that?

Anyone bo Obummer! :blink:

Here's my take on it.

We won't know until 2016. The current President is not finished yet.

The election process really brings out the best in the big hungry dogs, doesn't it? I am not going to argue any points about the Republican Candidates, no great detail of my conclusions, just an observer, listener and Glassemulsion asked the question. Besides your not talking roofing and I didn't want to disappoint OS.

Twill thanks for the "Mittens", love it.

Mittens: This one makes me shake my head. They are all wealthy men but this one gets me. He is so out of touch and so not in anybodies league. When asked about any personal earnings other than investments he said "yes,I make some money guest speaking but "not much". That "not much" was 8 engagements and they only made him $375,000 + ....$10,000 bets....pictures of him pumping gas into his tour bus....get real!!! I don't care about him being a Governor. He can walk the walk and talk the talk but he still "ain't" no President.

Newt: enough said.

Santorum: Nice boy from PA but we are on differnt sides of the fence.

Paul: Yes I am discriminating, he is too old for the rigorius position of President. I think he really doesn't want it anymore but I do think he is putting the ideas out there and people are listening. Setting the stage so to speak for his son, who I bet will be a contender for the 2016 election.

Thanks for reading. PC

Interesting video on how two party systems are inevitable

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Also, they have a great video about coffee but that's a bit off topic. 'Death to Pennies' is also a good one.

I agree. maybe a good ole roofing co. owner no wait we want back door money to stop. we are screwed. :huh:

Yeah that column is not the only reason I am not voting for him. It was handy and implies that Mittens really is not going to dig in and fix much. Which he isn't. At least I don't think so. Maybe because: A) He has not clued us in on anything he might do B) See A C) He seems to be part of the problem rather than the solution. He seems to be a flip flopping, high taxing, more regulation, HUGE Government, more of the same Dem/ Rep. We need to dump these party hacks by the boatloads. Send 'em on to the Cayman Islands or back to Russia. Whichever.

Totally void of ideas. Just want the Job. YAWN. Next please

I am not voting for Romney or Ron Paul. It will be newt or santorum but I will say that is a left wing liberal answer by krugman. Romney paid what taxes he had to he didn't break the law. Ill bet krugman doesn't send the irs an extra 10,000.00 a year in good faith if I could send the irs less I would but I cant and if the irs says everyone gets $$$ back this year how many people would say no. So I cant judge him based on his taxes. I'm not voting for him because, I he lacks the brain power to run this country. WE ARE ALREADY TAXED OVER 95% IN THIS COUNTRY THE GOVERNMENT JUST CALLS IT OTHER NAMES SALES TAX, INCOMETAX, PROPERTY TAX, BUISNESS TAX ,CITY TAX , COUNTY TAX , STREET TAX , AND ON AND ON :dry: I wish I had other people to vote for but I don't so I will vote for whoever helps me make more money in this broken economy :woohoo:

THIS IS A RARE TIME I AGREE WITH PAUL KRUGMAN:

Taxes at the Top

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: January 19, 2012

Call me peculiar, but I’m actually enjoying the spectacle of Mitt Romney doing the Dance of the Seven Veils — partly out of voyeurism, of course, but also because it’s about time that we had this discussion.

The theme of his dance, for those who haven’t been paying attention, is taxes — his own taxes. Although disclosure of tax returns is standard practice for political candidates, Mr. Romney has never done so, and, at first, he tried to stonewall the issue even in a presidential race. Then he said that he probably pays only about 15 percent of his income in taxes, and he hinted that he might release his 2011 return.

Even then, however, he will face pressure to release previous returns, too — like his father, who released 12 years of returns back when he made his presidential run. (The elder Romney, by the way, paid 37 percent of his income in taxes).

And the public has a right to see the back years: By 2011, with the campaign looming, Mr. Romney may have rearranged his portfolio to minimize awkward issues like his accounts in the Cayman Islands or his use of the justly reviled “carried interest” tax break.

But the larger question isn’t what Mitt Romney’s tax returns have to say about Mitt Romney; it’s what they have to say about U.S. tax policy. Is there a good reason why the rich should bear a startlingly light tax burden?

For they do. If Mr. Romney is telling the truth about his taxes, he’s actually more or less typical of the very wealthy. Since 1992, the I.R.S. has been releasing income and tax data for the 400 highest-income filers. In 2008, the most recent year available, these filers paid only 18.1 percent of their income in federal income taxes; in 2007, they paid only 16.6 percent. When you bear in mind that the rich pay little either in payroll taxes or in state and local taxes — major burdens on middle-class families — this implies that the top 400 filers faced lower taxes than many ordinary workers.

The main reason the rich pay so little is that most of their income takes the form of capital gains, which are taxed at a maximum rate of 15 percent, far below the maximum on wages and salaries. So the question is whether capital gains — three-quarters of which go to the top 1 percent of the income distribution — warrant such special treatment.

Defenders of low taxes on the rich mainly make two arguments: that low taxes on capital gains are a time-honored principle, and that they are needed to promote economic growth and job creation. Both claims are false.

When you hear about the low, low taxes of people like Mr. Romney, what you need to know is that it wasn’t always thus — and the days when the superrich paid much higher taxes weren’t that long ago. Back in 1986, Ronald Reagan — yes, Ronald Reagan — signed a tax reform equalizing top rates on earned income and capital gains at 28 percent. The rate rose further, to more than 29 percent, during Bill Clinton’s first term.

Low capital gains taxes date only from 1997, when Mr. Clinton struck a deal with Republicans in Congress in which he cut taxes on the rich in return for creation of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. And today’s ultralow rates — the lowest since the days of Herbert Hoover — date only from 2003, when former President George W. Bush rammed both a tax cut on capital gains and a tax cut on dividends through Congress, something he achieved by exploiting the illusion of triumph in Iraq.

Correspondingly, the low-tax status of the very rich is also a recent development. During Mr. Clinton’s first term, the top 400 taxpayers paid close to 30 percent of their income in federal taxes, and even after his tax deal they paid substantially more than they have since the 2003 cut.

So is it essential that the rich receive such a big tax break? There is a theoretical case for according special treatment to capital gains, but there are also theoretical and practical arguments against such special treatment. In particular, the huge gap between taxes on earned income and taxes on unearned income creates a perverse incentive to arrange one’s affairs so as to make income appear in the “right” category.

And the economic record certainly doesn’t support the notion that superlow taxes on the superrich are the key to prosperity. During that first Clinton term, when the very rich paid much higher taxes than they do now, the economy added 11.5 million jobs, dwarfing anything achieved even during the good years of the Bush administration.

So Mr. Romney’s tax dance is doing us all a service by highlighting the unwise, unjust and expensive favors being showered on the upper-upper class. At a time when all the self-proclaimed serious people are telling us that the poor and the middle class must suffer in the name of fiscal probity, such low taxes on the very rich are indefensible

SO TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, I WILL NOT BE VOTING FOR MITTENS