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Should Mitt release his tax returns?

I wonder if anybody else on here has actually read Wealth of Nations. Animal Farm and The Jungle are emotional works of fiction written to try to garner sympathy for something that is theoretically and empirically unsound.
 
leftyjace said:
I wonder if anybody else on here has actually read Wealth of Nations. Animal Farm and The Jungle are emotional works of fiction written to try to garner sympathy for something that is theoretically and empirically unsound.
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Yes. Did you read the part about progressive taxation to level the wealth?


leftyjace said:
Still an Austrian economist, and simply can't understand socialistic mentalities.
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You'll grow up some day.
 
Stoked said:
No I have not. I will look into that.

In todays social media I am sure that someone somewhere will manage to get the word out. But yes I think the general populace tends to get to complacent and not rilled up at the appropriate times.

I have the feeling that could change shortly. (shortly = about 2 years)
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hmmm.... that would be about the time they've given up their personal computers, eh Salty?


at any rate, one of the things I really don't understand in the current ideology is that if so much of our economic woes are due to overall high levels of debt, then why is the solution to lower interest rates and encourage more debt?



ok, so back to the topic (I'd forgotten what is was) Romney should not release his tax returns, I can't imagine they would help his cause. I think I already said that back on page 3.
 
franklin said:
Yes. Did you read the part about progressive taxation to level the wealth?
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Sure did. I don't disagree with a progressively higher tax bracket... within reason.
I also would love to have a simplified tax code.
But that's the responsibility of those that make the tax code (current and former presidents), not presidential candidates yet.

franklin said:
You'll grow up some day.
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Good hell, I hope not.
 
leftyjace said:
Sure did. I don't disagree with a progressively higher tax bracket... within reason.
I also would love to have a simplified tax code.
But that's the responsibility of those that make the tax code (current and former presidents), not presidential candidates yet.
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Fair enough. The redeeming value of the Austrians is the push for predictability and simplification (see Scat's signature). You're not the typical person claiming to follow Austrian economics, who tend to be closer to anarchists than to the Austrians. I think most of them would leave a Hayek conference calling him a Marxist.
 
Stoked said:
I cannot see Ford, GMC, Dodge...willing to forgo the trucks and expensive cars that americans eat up for the more economical, sensible cars in europe.
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I thought we were talking world market.

obama_hides_behind_romney.jpg
 
Here's a take on why Romney won't do himself any good by releasing his taxes:

https://www.redstate.com/erick/2012...unreleased-tax-returns-he-overpaid-his-taxes/

Ben Domenech has been doing some pretty solid reporting in The Transom about what might be in Mitt Romney’s taxes. He offers this morning the best and most informed theory.

Why most informed? Well, he talked to people who were familiar with the veep vetting process for McCain in 2008.

So what about the years before 2009? We know he turned over more than two decades of returns to the McCain campaign during the veepstakes vetting process. What was in them? “Mitt’s taxes were complex, but clean. He overpaid his taxes.

An honest appraisal would find nothing to criticize, though Romney’s staff, for better or worse, doesn’t seem to trust the returns to be honestly appraised by the media,” says a source closely familiar with the 2008 vetting process. “To be clear, there’s stuff in the tax returns the dishonest or ignorant can snark at, though it pretty much comes down to criticizing Romney for being rich. There’s nothing indefensible, but as with a lot of the attacks on Bain, Romney isn’t defending. As a game theory matter, people are going to assume the worst. But presidential general election politics seems to be about something other than dealing directly and straightforwardly with issues, so maybe this strategy is focus-grouping better with disengaged independents.”
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You don't have tax accounts in Switzerland and the Caymen Islands unless you are a traitor to your country trying to get out of paying your fair share of taxes.
Prove us wrong, and give us the details Romney.
 
franklin said:
I just looked up that he lowered the top rate from 70% to 50%. I consider 70% pretty extreme.
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I thought we were talking about the cut being extreme, but yes 70% is extreme. 50% is extreme. Everybody would be bitching if half their salary went to the government.

franklin said:
Reagan also chopped a lot of aid to the poor and replaced it with get to work programs, which is something I'm highly in favor of.
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What kind?

franklin said:
Placing the blame away from Reagan doesn't change the tax cut fallacy. The rest of that reads as evidence of the growing wealth divide that started under Reagan. Under the tax code, I would expect the top to pay a larger portion of income taxes when they receive a larger portion of the income.
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There is no tax rate cut fallacy if those cuts were responsible for increased revenue.
The unequal tax rates contribute to the wealth divide. It is human nature to avoid being punished for success.

Flow of funds is a banking term related to accounting for credit creation, investment, & consumption.
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So, does it matter what type of spending contributed to the debt?

No. I said "Government taxed & borrowed & spent money into the economy, which made it stronger, which led households to feel good about prospects which led to a boom in private sector debt".

It is well known that sentiment plays a huge role in consumption patterns. The stimulating effects of government spending influences citizens to go into debt to consume. We've obviously seen plenty of this the last 3-4 years that would have been absent had the government not intervened. We've also seen the opposite effects as uncertainty hangs fear over our heads.

Let me phrase it as a question: If you thought the economy was going to get worse tomorrow would you run out and buy a new car on credit?
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I agree that confidence plays a role in consumption patterns. That's why pairing optimism from the president...belief in America, and tax rate cuts stimulates consumer spending.

This is how I see the rest of the nonsense:

why_stimulus_doesnt_work.jpg
 
northeast said:
You don't have tax accounts in Switzerland and the Caymen Islands unless you are a traitor to your country trying to get out of paying your fair share of taxes.
Prove us wrong, and give us the details Romney.
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I'm very close to negging you for this stupidity.
 
colton said:
Equally hilarious to see some of the same people who defended Obama against the birth certificate "issue" now calling for Mitt's tax records.

For what it's worth, I thought the people demanding birth certificates were stupid, and I think the people demanding the tax records are also stupid.
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The difference is that there is at least a reasonably well-established precedent for Presidential candidates to release tax returns stretching back to the 1970s. Ironically, Mitt's father was the first to do so and establish the precedent, if my memory is correct.

Also, Presidents listen to and act on behalf of a variety of special interests. It is of some interest at least to see which of these special interests he benefits from in terms of his own personal income. It is also useful to know whether President's are vulnerable to financial or tax scandals. It is a legitimate part of a thorough vetting process that has bi-partisan support among wide swatches of the American public.

In contrast, there is no precedent to releasing birth certificates and no bi-partisan demand to do so, or demand among reasonably rational people.

So the one is an established practice deemed useful by members of both political parties as part of the thorough vetting process of presidential candidates. The other was a witch hunt by a bunch of paranoid, irrational looney toons.

I believe that equating the two is making a false equivalence.
 
northeast said:
You don't have tax accounts in Switzerland and the Caymen Islands unless you are a traitor to your country trying to get out of paying your fair share of taxes.
Prove us wrong, and give us the details Romney.
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Wrong. A true citizen uses the United States tax code to his advantage as best he or she can while still paying what they ultimately owe. A real traitor is someone who renounces their citizenship over taxes.

EDIT: I meant to post this before. https://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/16/us-usa-citizen-renounce-idUSBRE83F0UF20120416
 
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