Why Are Frum People Supporting Donald Trump?

princessleah

Tue, Jan 26 2016, 8:44 am

Part of the debate over raising taxes on the wealthy has to do with loopholes that lower their tax rate (remember Warren Buffet said he pays a lower percentage than his secretary?). Specifically hedge fund workers and private equity people, who earn their "salary" in bonuses, carried interest-tax that is taxed at a lower rate.

"Because the manager is compensated with carried interest, the bulk of their income from the fund is taxed as a return on investment and not as compensation for services. Typically, a partner is not taxed upon receipt of a carried interest because it is difficult to measure the present value of an interest in future profits.[9] Instead, the partner is taxed as the partnership earns income. In the case of a hedge fund, this means that the partner defers taxation on the income the hedge fund earns, which is typically ordinary income or possibly short-term capital gains, which are taxed the same as ordinary income due to the nature of the investments most hedge funds make. Private equity funds, however, typically invest on a longer horizon, with the result that their income is long-term capital gains, taxable to individuals at a maximum 20% rate. Because this compensation can reach, in the case of the most successful funds, enormous figures, concern has been raised, in both the U.S. Congress and the media, that managers are taking advantage of tax loopholes to receive what is effectively a salary without paying the ordinary 39.6% marginal income tax rates an average person would have to pay on such income."

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Jan 26 2016, 8:52 am

Do you all understand that ---

(1) In our tax system, there's a concept called marginal tax rates? Even if a tax rate is 46%, that wouldn't be your average tax rate. You'd be taxed at a lower percentage up to a certain level; only the amount of income over that level would be taxed at 46% (or whatever rate we're talking about).

(2) In many ways our tax system is actually *regressive*, with poorer people paying a larger percentage of their wages than richer people because
(a) Our payroll tax (social security portion) is capped at 6.2% of the first 118,000 earned, no matter the income. That's $7347, no matter if you earn 500K or 118K. If you earn 500K, you're paying 1.4% of your income for that payroll tax, rather than 6.2%.
(b) Sales taxes and property taxes are the same percentage of the goods you consume or the value of your property no matter what you earn. But since consumption and property value generally do not rise as fast as income, poorer people pay a greater portion of their income on thee taxes.

I bring this up because I get the sense from reading these posts that quite a few of the women here do not know these facts.

PinkFridge

Tue, Jan 26 2016, 8:56 am

fmt4 wrote:

btw- off topic, but in answer to the post somewhere where someone said that the media was making fun of Sarah Palin's speech but it really wasn't so bad - did we watch the same speech???? It was bats*it insannnneeee! I had to stop watching because it made me feel embarrassed and uncomfortable for her acting like a crazy person. It was even more crazy than the snl skit parodying it!
That woman is a nutball.

I missed that one. I myself called her deranged. (Though I did go back and edit that maybe that wasn't fair. But I certainly lean towards your view.)

What do you think of the Duck Dynasty Family Robinson? I thought I heard an ad saying that one of them endorses Cruz but I just heard Trump say that he got a Robinson endorsement.

amother

Tan

Tue, Jan 26 2016, 9:18 am

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

I did not know 1. I did know 2 and I don't think that's fair.

amother

Tan

Tue, Jan 26 2016, 9:28 am

mommy2b2c wrote:

You mean if my husband ever makes 5 million dollars, we will have to give almost half of it away? Sounds depressing to me. And no, you cannot live the same lifestyle on 2.8 million as on 4 million. (If lets say there was a 20% tax rate on everyone.) I can think of lots of things I can do with an extra million dollars.

The difference in lifestyle between someone making 2-4million per year is not that different. There's a lot you can do with a million dollars but there's not that much you can do with 4 million that you can't do with 2 million.

I think it's more depressing to make $12 per hour and then to receive your paycheck and realize that they cut out 17% in taxes. Even if you do get some of it back in April.

Decreasing the tax on the wealthy to 20% would cut the government out of hundreds of billions in revenue each year. Which government funded programs should be reduced because of lack of funds? Should it be food stamps, should it be Medicaid? Should it be fafsa? Should they pave the streets less often? should they cut back on the military?

Rubber Ducky

Tue, Jan 26 2016, 9:55 am

Mr. Trump's tax plan:
http://www.usnews.com/news/blo.....tails
http://taxpolicycenter.org/Upl.....n.pdf
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g.....t-on/ Marina, you can skip this one, it's from breitbart Very Happy

Quick summary for the impatient: Mr. Trump wants to simplify the tax code to have fewer brackets (3 instead of the current 7) and wants to tax foreign subsidiaries of American companies. Lower income people (25K for single, 50K for married) would continue to pay no income tax. Reduces charity deductions, eliminates the gift tax and estate tax. Larger standard deductions reduce incentive to itemize deductions. The plan lowers taxes for most people already paying income tax, so would have to rely on economic growth, reduced federal spending, and/or tariffs on foreign goods to be revenue neutral.

Rubber Ducky

Tue, Jan 26 2016, 10:06 am

amother wrote:

Why do you think tzedakah is capped at 20% of income?

Personally, I would like to see everyone paying income taxes at a much flatter rate, or maybe a VAT instead. The current system encourages dependence on government programs and class resentment. Let's incentivize working hard and earning more instead. A bigger pie means more for all.

edited to correct typo

Last edited by Rubber Ducky on Tue, Jan 26 2016, 11:08 am; edited 1 time in total

DrMom

Tue, Jan 26 2016, 10:19 am

fmt4 wrote:

Gotta agree with this. There was a lot of chatter on conservative websites about how her endorsement of Trump over Cruz was a huge blow to the Cruz campaign. I kept thinking, "Really?"

I understand she has a good record of achievement as Governor of Alaska, but as a speaker, she is only effective (in a positive way), if she is reading from a script written by someone else.

anon for this

Tue, Jan 26 2016, 1:01 pm

amother wrote:

Obama does not care for the average white american citizen either, will speak up about black people who are killed by white people but will not address black on black crime. Obama will call a white shooter, terrorist, but will not use the same label for black or Muslim shooters.

If you heard or read Obama's speech on gun control from a few weeks ago, you'd know this isn't the case. In it he talks about many of the mass shootings that have happened over the past several years, but only uses the term "terrorist" to refer to the San Bernardino shooters who were, in fact, Muslims. He doesn't mention the race of the shooters or victims in any of the shootings, though he does mention that some shootings targeted people of specific religious groups: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs. Most of the victims in the other shootings he mentions are white, as are nearly all of the shooters (Navy Yard shootings are an exception that come to mind); this reflects the demographics of mass shootings in the US during the past several years.

He spends a lot of time talking about Gabby Giffords and the Newtown shooting victims. Gabby Giffords is white, as were most (if not all) of the people killed at Newtown.

And this certainly isn't the first time he's mentioned most of these mass shootings; I think he spoke about all or nearly all of them one shortly after each happened.

Of course the fact that he mentions all those victims doesn't prove he cares about them, but I'm not sure how he could prove that to your satisfaction.

While the focus of Obama's speech was mass shootings, he definitely mentions smaller black-on-black shotings. He talks about how Zaevion Dobson sacrificed his life to shield three other people during a drive-by-shooting; both Dobson and his shooter were black. And when he says, after mentioning the children on Newtown, that "it happens on the streets of Chicago every day", he's talking about more of the same.

November

Tue, Jan 26 2016, 5:07 pm

anon for this wrote:

President Obama says a lot of things. I did hear this speech and believe that it was the first time that he referred to the San Bernadino killers as terrorists. In fact it has taken him years to refer to Hasan Nidal as a terrorist, even though he killed was it 14 soldiers after yelling his Alahu Akbar thing.
There are patterns of speech and behavior that tell us about people, including about President Obama. His initial reactions and responses to so many events that have occurred while he has been President have together caused people to get impressions of him. The Beer Summit, Trayvon Martin, just to name 2. One speech will not change that.
What saddens me is that IMO Obama could have used his bully pulpit to bring about more calm thinking and togetherness but he chose not to do that. He chooses to side with a side which instead of helping people to understand each other and work together, stirs the pot so that we each feel that we got cheated or treated unfairly. Unfortunately, most people are unhappy with President Obama - they are disappointed with him whether they are on the right or the left. He does not bring people together. He aggitates and creates grievance. Sometimes he'll say something in a speech that doesn't reflect what I'm talking about. But that's not his general persona.

MagentaYenta

Tue, Jan 26 2016, 5:15 pm

November wrote:

Out of curiosity, if you were in President Obama's position, how would you use your 'bully pulpit' to bring about calm thinking and togetherness?