Just Promise Me A Pony Already...

[WilliamPitt]

http://www.soapblox.net/chicago/showDiary.do?diaryId=1387

Just Promise Me a Pony Already
by: michael in chicago

March 15, 2006 at 16:51:55 America/Chicago

So today I check the mail, and there is another glossy mailer in my mailbox for a certain candidate who must think she's my pen pal or something as I get so many mailings from her campaign. As I was counting the various slickly designed reach out and touch my mailbox pieces I'd received (I'd lost count of how many, this one makes eight) I noticed a trend.

No photo of the candidate on the outside anymore. No more qualification lists. No more vague issue statements. Instead, the new focus was on big glowing general statements telling me what the candidate was promising she'd do for me. Flyer after flyer. Promise after general promise.

Gee, campaign promises are all swell and everything. But why not just promise me a pony already.
michael in chicago :: Just Promise Me a Pony Already
I mean, I know it's great that this candidate is going to lower energy prices, end our dependence of foreign oil and take on the price gouging oil companies. What politician doesn't say that? But at least she promised me right there one of them mailers she sent me.

But I want a pony.

I know Congress gave oil companies $14 billion in subsidies while cutting student loans. I'm glad she thought this was wrong. But what candidate - or mildly awake person doesn't think this is wrong? But at least she's promising to reverse this one of her mailings.

I still want a pony.

I'm glad this candidate thinks that Congress should not meddle in the lives of American families. Who doesn't? What politician isn't promising to end this? Obviously this one isn't. Said so in one of her mailings that arrived in my very own mailbox.

But I'm still waiting for that pony.

...more...

[mopinko]

1. must be a pony in there somewhere

i mean, this horseshit must be coming from somewhere.

[dogman]

2. But he believes Cegelis can end the Iraq War?

He's an astute political observer to have just come to a realization about campaign promises.

[Gary Kleppe]

3. Where did Cegelis promise to end the war? N?T

[dogman]

6. And where did Duckworth promise the things he writes about?

How many rants has this guy written against Duckworth? Read the postings here and elsewhere and you will find one of the major complaints against Duckworth is her position on the Iraq War. No candidate is claiming they can make these things happen, they are stating their position. That's my point.

[LSK]

22. last night, she called for timetables just like Scott did

Duckworth still is parroting the Bush line about benchmarks (whatever the fuck those are).

[dogman]

24. Benchmarks are the Democratic line.

Those are favored by most Democratic leaders. They call for troop withdrawal after Iraqi forces have reached preset goals for self-defense of their country from its neighbors and is able to control warring factions within the country. This is a moral obligation an occupying force is held to, by international standards. Bushco on the other hand does not call for a total removal of US troops no matter what level of self-sufficiency Iraq has reached. Only a few Dem leaders have called for immediate withdrawal, Harkin and Murtha for instance, although they would maintain an over-the-horizon presence (which neighboring country would be blessed with our presence is not clear, maybe the UAE in exchange for our ports). Those calling for a timetable differ on the time line of the timetable and have various means of triggering the timetable (some would call those benchmarks).

[mopinko]

4. a congress that was doing it's job would have prevented

the war. a people powered people's house. not a democratic congress, but a congress not in the pocket of corporate interests.
i really do find tammy's embrace of the amt as an issue to be a red flag. pandering to people's greed. what a platform.

[dogman]

5. Maybe you should read about the AMT.

I provided a link in another post here, but will repeat it for you.
Snip>The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center says the AMT will hit 3.6 million out of the nation's 131 million taxpayers filing for tax year 2005 (filed in early 2006), and could affect 31 million by 2010 if nothing is done.

To give you a sense of just who might get caught, this year only 1.8 percent of married couples with two kids and an adjusted gross income between $75,000 and $100,000 will be subject to AMT. Next year, that number jumps to 73.4 percent.<snip
http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/09/pf/taxes/amt_101/index.htm
This would be of interest to many in the 6th CD.

[mopinko]

7. "i will cut your taxes"

is how we ended up in this mess. sorry, to me, it is a disgusting thing to make the cornerstone of your campaign.

[dogman]

8. This is hardly "I will cut your taxes".

This is about stopping middle-class workers taxes from rising to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. There is a big difference. I would bet voters in the 6th CD care a lot about this issue.

[mopinko]

10. sadly, they do

that's why they have voted thug all these years.

[dogman]

12. Yes it's sad that middle-class working families carry such a large burden.

That is a large reason why the thugs have gotten their vote. It's time someone showed them the thugs have been lying and actually try to help them.

[billyf65]

15. Glad someone pays attention

Geez, people, read up a little (I found this site works well: www.google.com).

Among those who support allowing the AMT exemption expiring is Bill Frist.

Among those who support extending the relief or reforming this tax that now hits middle-class (and largely blue-state because of higher incomes) taxes are such Conservative Fascists as:

Nita Lowey, Chuck Schumer, Bob Menendez, writers at Daily Kos...get my drift here?

The AMT relief was the candy that kept middle-class voters at bay to cover Bush's behind to slash taxes on the rich. Now that he's in good shape (no more elections), he's fine letting this one expire, while keeping cuts for the wealthy. This is an upside-down policy.

It's no sin for Democrats to support tax relief for middle-class families. We need to keep our progressive tax system - and reinstating the AMT does exactly the opposite.

[Gary Kleppe]

9. Where do they get those numbers?

I don't see our economy changing that drastically from one year to the next. What makes them predict this, and how can they claim to know with such precision?

Only about 15-20% of Sixth District residents are in the income range you mentioned, by the way. And talking about people who are "subject to AMT" is a little misleading because it includes a lot of people who will pay only slightly more.

While indexing the AMT for inflation is a reasonable idea, I don't see why we should consider it a priority when our jobs are being outsourced and health costs are going through the roof.

[dogman]

11. What has the inflation rate been since 1969?

35+ years times 3% = over 100%. That's a probably modest look at the subject. Is your 15-20% figure for individuals? Most married file jointly. I doubt that many voters in this CD are out of work. You could not live there very long without a job with the cost of living in that District. Duckworth also addresses health care but he would rather have a pony.

[Gary Kleppe]

13. Huh?

The jump from 1.8% to 72% that your article claimed is not from 1696 to now. It will supposedly occur from this year to the next. There certainly isn't going to be 100% inflation from 2005 to 2006.

Inflation isn't even the relevant statistic here. It's growth in wages (not prices, which is what inflation measures) which will push people into being affected by the AMT.

My figures are from the census bureau. The $75,000 to $100,000 range is 16.5% for households, 19.4% for families.

This is as of the year 2000. I don't know if there's any more recent data available. Given that the country has had Republicans in charge between then and now, I don't think there's been a lot of growth in that income group during that time period.

As for persons being out of work, only about 72% of people in the Sixth over 16 were in the labor force as of the year 2000. Again, this is pre-Bush, so things will only have gotten worse since then. Of that 72%, a lot of people are working crappy dead-end jobs, in many cases without any steady guarantee of employment. And the cost of living varies throughout the district.

As for health care, the other two candidates have supported it more consistently than Duckworth. But neither of them is promising that it can be delivered.

[dogman]

16. Inflation applies to wages as well as prices.

Most wage rate raises are indexed to CPI. If you note the AMT is a combination of wages as well as exemptions.
Snip>The problem is that the exemptions granted under the AMT have not kept pace with inflation -- while the average paycheck has.<snip
The % of households affected is not who is in the range now, but how many will rise above that range with wage inflation. You would have to see what % is just below 75% at present.
As for people out of work, the age of 16 is not as relevant in this District since there are a large number of young people who live a pretty good lifestyle. Just drive past schools in this District and look at the cars these kids are driving. For the working class there are many who work more than one crappy job which, added to their spouse's crappy job, gives them a taxable income that is threatened by the AMT.
The other two candidates have been campaigning longer than Duckworth. She has listed this as a main theme since she has entered the race. She has toured health care facilities with Max Cleland, while many have said she is not on the ground campaigning.

[Gary Kleppe]

19. Double "huh?"

Inflation is an aggregate measure of prices. There's no guarantee that wages will keep up with it. Some do, but many don't, especially at the lower end of the economic scale.

The % of households affected is not who is in the range now, but how many will rise above that range with wage inflation. You would have to see what % is just below 75% at present.

I don't even know what you mean here. All I can say is that we're only talking about a difference of one year. Why on Earth would the number of people paying AMT jump from under 2% to over 70%?

Yes, the number I cited includes young people who aren't in the workforce because their parents provide for them. It also includes retirees. No doubt some housewives as well. That still leaves a significant percentage of adults who aren't in the workforce and would like to be.

Crappy jobs generally pay minimum wage, or something close to it. The AMT has a $58,000 exemption. So here's a quiz for you: If you worked fifty-two weeks a year at $6.50/hour, how many collective hours would you and your spouse have to put in to acheive a $58,000 gross income?

Note that having this much income doesn't by any means guarantee that the AMT will affect you. You would also need enough deductions on your regular taxes so that the AMT amount exceeds them.

[kevsand]

21. The concept is actually extremely simple.

Not sure why you're missing it. AMT uses a threshold trigger income level to determine when people become subject to it. When the AMT was created so many decades ago, everybody's wages (rich and poor) were significantly lower than now, and the benchmark was set at a value that reflected what was considered "wealthy" back then.

Over time, inflation has affected both prices and wages. Obviously, the effect on wages has been slower, since real wages haven't kept up with the cost of living, but over several decades, what constitutes a middle class income has clearly moved gradually upward in terms of raw dollars. This is mainly due to the fact that dollars are simply worth less today than thirty years ago, both in terms of purchasing power and in the amount of labor they can buy.

A statistically significant number of people are now just below the threshold trigger income level for AMT, which has never been adjusted. This was not the case when it was created, but has come about because of the overall loss of value in the dollar (i.e., inflation). In fact, so many people are closing in on the trigger value, that it is expected that with the current normal rate of inflation, a really big chunk of folks will cross the threshold in the next year or two.

Cegelis understands this perfectly well, and from published reports, agrees with Duckworth. You should ask her about it.

[Gary Kleppe]

23. Oookay...

First of all, whether Cegelis supports changing the AMT is irrelevant. I've already said I have no problem indexing it for inflation. What we are disagreeing on are the specific numbers and arguments used in the article that the previous poster linked to.

It may be true that a lot of people are going to be crossing the AMT threshhold.

But talking about that is a bit deceptive, since it's not as though anybody who crosses the threshhold sutomatically starts paying thousands of dollars in extra taxes. If you only go over the threshhold slightly, your taxes only go up slightly.

Let's do the math. Suppose my family has a $3000 increase in income, which causes us to be subject to the AMT where we weren't before. The AMT tax rate on my income will go up by 28% of $3000, which is $840.

But my taxes would've gone up anyway because of the extra income, even if not for the AMT. I'm probably in the 15% bracket for standard income tax, so my standard tax would have gone up by 15% of $3000 which is $450.

So with a $3000 raise, the AMT only has me paying a net $390 more. Not something that ought to break my bank if I'm making $75,000 to $100,000.

[kevsand]

26. Unless I'm mistaken, the AMT rate applies to

all of your taxable income, not just the amount that your income went up, or just the amount over the threshold. That means that you would now be paying 28% on all of your taxable income instead of your hypothetical 15% rate. Your taxes would, in that case, nearly double.

In fact, it would probably be much more than that, since under the AMT, you no longer qualify for a number of common exemptions, such as for state and local income or property taxes, or child tax credits, or interest paid on your home mortgage, etc. That means that your taxable income could be significantly higher as well, which would further exaggerate the increase in taxes owed.

[Gary Kleppe]

27. You are right, but you are wrong.

I'll try to hand-wave it because I'm not sure people would like to see actual equations written down.

Basically, the threshhold income is the level at which the AMT calculation, taking into account everything you mention above, gives you the same result as the standard tax calculation. Above this point, the AMT would apply; below it, the standard tax would.

Once you get above the threshhold, your tax starts increasing at the rate of 28% of additional income, rather than the standard 15%. But the tax amount does not take a quantum leap. At threshhold, AMT tax amount = standard tax amount. That's why it's the threshhold.

Let's take an example. Suppose I have $25,000 in deductions/exemptions on the standard tax, none of which apply to the AMT. In this case, my threshhold income would be $96,077. Standard tax at this income would be (.15) (96077 - 25000) which is $10,662. AMT would be (.28) (96077 - 58000) which is the same.

Below this threshhold I would pay standard tax. With an income of $95,000 I would pay (.15) (95000 - 25000) = $10,500.

Above this threshhold I would pay AMT. With an income of $98,000 I would pay (.28) (98000 - 58000) = $11, 200. Do the math yourself. There is no quantum leap.

[kevsand]

28. Your math is fine.

It's your interpretations I have trouble with. In your example, a 3.16% increase in income (which is very much in line with current COLAs) results in a 6.67% increase in taxes owed. Without AMT, the tax increase would only be 4.29%. That hardly seems fair, and only further contributes to the gradual decline in real wages, since the increased tax burden eats into those COLAs at a time when nothing is slowing the rise in the actual costs of living.

I would further suggest that the amounts involved are not trivial, even for people at these income levels. Several hundred dollars may not be much out of your budget, but for a family that needs two incomes just to keep up the house payments and pay for health insurance and try (god willing) to set something aside for multiple kids' college funds, this sort of unexpected and therefore unbudgeted expense is just one more in what often seems to be an unending series of setbacks.

And while the amount in the first year may not seem to be huge to you, one has to remember that once the threshold is crossed, the taxpayers are pretty much stuck with AMT from that point on, unless Congress acts to change it. Assuming that annual COLA raises continue, just five years down the road, the difference between AMT and standard even in your example would be closer to $2,000 per year and growing.

One also has to consider that for many families, the deductions and exemptions that are lost may be significantly more than $25,000, and thus bring the threshold lower than your example. In our own case, we don't itemize and have only one child, and our deductions plus exemptions last year were almost $20,000. Families that itemize or have three or four kids could easily have figures closer to $30,000 or even $35,000, which would drop the thresholds to around $91,000 and $85,000 respectively. This obviously increases the number of families that could be affected.

The thing that mystifies me the most, however, is that you seem to be determined to position yourself as maintaining that de facto middle class tax increases are not that big a deal. Even modest tax increases on the middle class, at a time when the wealthy pay less and less, strike me as being somewhat less than politically astute at best. I'm not sure why any Democrat would want to stake out that ground, particularly in the heat of an election.

[Gary Kleppe]

29. I'm not running for office.

Whatever "ground I stake out" is just my opinion, nothing more. I think the cost of health care, outsourcing of jobs, etc. are far bigger problems for the middle class than the AMT is.

[kevsand]

30. Fair enough.

That's a perfectly reasonable statement, and I accept it at face value.

However, there may be many here who, unlike myself, are unable to separate your work/advocacy on Cegelis' behalf from your personal opinions and positions on the forum.

Finally, you are absolutely correct that those other issues are bigger problems in at least one respect: they will be relatively much more difficult to solve. The AMT issue, by contrast, is relatively easy to fix, and would have a significant impact. This really should be a no-brainer, and I still find any resistance to such a painless solution very perplexing. Anytime we can help large numbers of people by picking such low hanging fruit, we should do so. I hardly think it will slow down our progress on the other obviously vital issues you mentioned.

[billyf65]

20. Do people actually know what their candidate stands for?

Do those of you who support Cegelis bother to inform yourselves about her positions? Cegelis, Duckworth and Scott all agree on AMT.

http://www.dailyherald.com/special/election/ele_story.asp?id=167685

Congressional race turns to talk of taxes and the budget
By Eric Krol
Daily Herald Political Writer

Posted Thursday, March 16, 2006

...The trio also agrees Congress must fix the alternative minimum tax, which was put into place in 1969 as a way to keep rich families from avoiding paying any income tax. IRS officials estimate that in coming years, it could nab nearly 35 million families making between $75,000 and $100,000 a year, raising their taxes. Duckworth has made the complex issue a centerpiece of her campaign.

[billyf65]

14. Really!!!

A candidate sent Michael in Chicago (Chicago?) mailers. Really. More than one. Really.

Well Michael in CHICAGO, welcome to the world of campaign politics, and please stretch before patting yourself on the back for being such an astute observer of public policy.

If we've learned NOTHING in the last five years of the Bush experience, we've learned that many people DON'T pay very close attention (save you, Michael in Chicago). Many have jobs and kids and life to worry about. Others don't particularly care. Ever notice that tv ads also run more than once? Radio ads?

And if Michael in CHICAGO had received several "slick" mailers from a candidate he favored, would he have complained thusly?

Come to think of it, Michael in Chicago and others here seem to be able to tell us some of what the candidate they oppose wants to do in Congress. But I don't see a lot of specifics about what the candidate they favor will do from them - only the ghastly horrors of the one they oppose.

I guess, Michael in Chicago, your little screed just might be proving one candidate's campaign is doing it's job fairly well, no?

But hey, Michael in Chicago, you keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the straws -er- stars.

[Gary Kleppe]

25. Just for the record...

Michael lives not in Chicago, but in the west suburbs of Chicago inside the Sixth District. He is using "Chicago" in the sense of Greater Chicagoland.

[madrchsod]

17. gee i wish someone would send me a pony out here in the 14th...

oh wait a minute i can buy a 6000 dollar "ronny on a horse" bronze statue. proceeds go to casting a really large statue to be placed in the center of the 2.5 million waterfront park that fat denny funded....

hasn`t the good middle and upper class in the 6th vote republican for a brazillion years because they thought the big bad democrats were going to give all their money to the down and outers? no unions in my workplace and if they try well there`s a few ways around that..so cegalis comes up with close to 44% against god and the champions decide they need a war hero to impress the folks out there in illinois and what wise men they are! after reading the stats on the 6th i can see why the "liberal-progressive-commie pinko democrats" are not the choice of champions because in the 6th they need a good solid centrist democrat so they won`t offended the middle class democrats and republicans.
progressives need not apply

[Gary Kleppe]

18. A "good solid centrist"...

...would be someone who consistently espouses middle-of-the-road positions. That is most definitely not Duckworth, whose positions range from progressive to centrist depending on whom she's talking to.