In many cases, it’s these guys:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) last week highlighted what he called a “shocking” internal Pentagon report that concluded defense companies defrauded the military by $1.1 trillion.
“The ugly truth is that virtually all of the major defense contractors in this country for years have been engaged in systemic fraudulent behavior, while receiving hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money,” Sanders said in a statement. “With the country running a nearly $15 trillion national debt, my goal is to provide as much transparency as possible about what is happening with taxpayer money.”
More than $250 million “went to 54 contractors convicted of hard-core criminal fraud in the same period,” Sanders said, summarizing tables included with the DoD report. “Of that total, $33 million was paid to companies after they were convicted of crimes.”
easy solution: no more welfare to corporations and no more welfare to individuals.
problem solved. next?
Like public education and public safety???
Here’s the glibertarian vision of utopia:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.c.....home-burn/
@1 Cute.
How about we buy fewer bombs, and more schools and windmills?
Problem solved.
YLB in case you did not notice is was a city government fire department; “but were told that since they had not paid $75 this year to the city of South Fulton, the local fire department would not send a truck to help”.
#3 we need to put some corporate executives in jail.
Hell 11 people died on the BP rig in the Gulf and no one went to jail. That needs to change.
Yeah. Let theur fucking house burn.
Damn fucking straight.
But let’s be sure we bail out CitiBank.
$1.1 TRILLION!
Nobody could have predicted.
Lets see some perp walks, President Obama.
Yeah, those autistic kids are just faking it anyway. Lazy fuckers.
You say that in jest, but the soul-less social-Darwinist glibertarians think exactly that.
They’re the fuckers.
@7 $1.1 TRILLION!
Nobody could have predicted.
Good ole Bartcop at Bartcop.com knew. He was saying that all along that Cheney and Bush were making out like bandits that they are.
@9
I think a lot of people have a preconceived notion of the world that they squeeze the world into rather than looking at the world and constructing a view of it based on what they see and they forget about populations of people, like the autistic kids that grow up into autistic adults. I say that as someone thats worked with autistic adults for the last 15 years.
I’ve walked into my local Starbucks with one of my guys on plenty of occasions to hear someone railing about “welfare” and “government spending.” They tend to get a deer in the headlights look in their eyes when they see us and explain that they weren’t talking about my guys. They just sort of forgot about us, but are happy to pay for the folks that really need help.
It seems to me like it’s really a question of how do you get these folks to take their blinders off and to look at the world as it really is (a few folk on the left could use this too.).
I’ve also had people tell me that a $2 coffee for an autistic guy is a waste of they’re tax payer dollars. But, that’s a very rare occurrence, the people that say such things get dirty looks from everyone around them when they say it, and they don’t stick around long enough for me to reply to them. They also tend to be old and will be dead soon.
@11 People whose thinking goes no deeper than bumper sticker slogans are mentally lazy, period.
@2
I didnty realize education and public safety were considered “welfare” in latino-land…
whats it like not paying any taxes?
“Free” education/daycare to a glibertarian, right asshat?
Well, these folks are nuts.
And so on and so forth. Basically, let’s give up on the modern world and stop paving the streets. Somehow, I doubt they’d like living in the world they created.
No one evades death and taxes moron.
Especially the “little people”..
By the way, I’m half European as well…
Got any racist names for Euros?
Ooo… Crazy ass county sheriffs!
http://vimeo.com/22654320
@12
Yep! But, if something actually makes them wake up and think they tend to come closer to our way of thinking.
Shit! Now we know the real reason the trolls were so pissed at Obama!
http://www.businessinsider.com.....st-2011-10
Fuck there’s nobody the trolls worship more than the richest man in the world.
@19
What I think they hate is that when “the little people” gang up against them even the richest man in the world dies in a ditch.
@16
yes, plenty….but you gotta earn ’em..
@13 “whats it like not paying any taxes?”
Dunno. I pay lots of taxes. Ask the rich — maybe they know.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....46518.html
@19 So, Libya was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qadhafi Family Riches, Inc.? Why am I not surprised?
People who steal whole countries probably think America’s banksters are small-timers.
Q: How much money does a potentate need?
A: All of it.
People who steal whole countries probably think America’s banksters are small-timers.
Compared to Citibank, Gaddafi was a piker.
So arschloch, how is public safety and education, “welfare”?
This should be interesting… Watch for some cretin zombie comment to appear without answering the question!
Both Big Friends of Barack ObamAA+
@19,
NOPE, as always you are forever wrong!
LMAO @ 28
You’re so stupid as always!
LMAO at a walking dead moron!
Go ask that fire department in TN who refused to save a house but for 75 lousy dollars!
21 – Plenty of names like a good little ignorant racist jerk.
1. puff puff pass spews:
Agreed. Flat tax and minimize roll of government.
Allow competition in Education.
Public Safety is not welfare YLB you dumbshit.
In fact, Public Safety, National Security and BASIC infrastructure is all government ought to be involved in. Public Education has turned into a costly, political joke stripping tax dollars from the classroom and dumping them in to the Unions to give to the Democrats.
Needs to stop.
Which is why there is no way the R’s will bail out the State’s like the Dems did last year.
Overspending states, like Washington, need to be held accountable and live within their means…not sucking off our kids and grandkids by increasing the National Debt to overpay them now. We have reached the top of the watershed.
Big government or reasonable government back to the basics.
According to the 1040 instructions for the 2008 tax year the only income upon which you pay no federal tax is $5. — from $5 to $15 the federal tax is $1.
The point being, that everyone pays their fair share of federal income tax — unless they are huge corporations or incredibly wealthy individuals.
Maybe the 47% who don’t pay taxes are the children of this country. But, fear not, as soon as Wingtopians reinstitute child labor, we can tax them, too. And the little bastards damn well better be grateful to the ‘job creators’ responsible for the jobs.
Come to think of it, the 1% has been far too reticent about the child slave labor jobs they have ‘created’ throughout the world.
Let’s give credit where credit is due.
# 33: Well, to be fair, that only applies to “taxable income”, which excludes all sorts of things.
For the business person, it excludes income which can be labeled as a business expense (such as 1/2 of a $400 lunch at the strip club with colleagues, classifed as a “client entertainment” expense); depreciations, income deferments, etc.). Cars (or car usage) ends up getting expensed, either by the individual or the corporation which provides it to them.
For the individual, it excludes some things which apply to everybody, but only those with wealthy families are affected: inheritances, gifts, etc.
Then you have the deductions. Wealthy people have larger charitiable deductions, but they also tend to give to non-profits which they patronize, and which have a social or business benifit to them (opera, museams, etc.). They also get to deduct interest and real estate tax expense on their vacation homes, which in effect ends up being a taxpayer subsidy. A middle-class taxpayer tends to give to the local PAWS, food bank, Goodwill, church, etc., and deducts interest and real estate tax expense only on their primary residence.
The only real tax subsidies to the poor and middle class are for the earned-income credit and the day care credits. These subsidies came about simply because declining real wages and increased working expenses had made goeing to work unprofitable for many. Why work at an $8.00 per hour job if your commuting expense and day care expense eats up all of that?
re 34: I ran my own business for 15 years. If you deduct something as a ‘business expense’, it is no longer ‘income’.
The word game with taxes goes something like this (and I am sure you are aware of this, but in case someone isn’t):
a) 47% of wage earners pay no federal income tax
because after deductions, they have no income.b) Corporate tax rates in the U.S. are the highest in the world — approximately 34.5%,
but most corporations only pay an effective tax rate of about 15% because of all the tax loopholes.Countries with lower corporate tax rates have done away with all of the loophole/deductions
@35 “If you deduct something as a ‘business expense’, it is no longer ‘income’.”
Which explains the existence of Escalades and Lincoln-badged crewcab pickups, among other things.
You can also (as just a regular taxpayer) deduct business mileage, the purchase of a vehicle that you use for business, square footage in your house that you use for business purposes, clothing that you use for business, schooling, books, magazines, dues for professional societies, charitable contributions — the list is as long as your pile of receipts and creative imagination will allow.
Most people do not do this, though, because necessity has never compelled them to figure it all out.
# 35: Well, there are “business expenses”, and there are “business expenses”.
In addition to my “day job”, my family has a web-based business which makes a little bit of money and has a few expenses, as well. Some of them are unavoidable (computers, printers, internet access, ink cartridges, office supplies, hosting fees, credit card processing fees, telephone expenses, etc.
Others have both a business and a personal componant. About the only one we take advantage of is that we conduct many business meetings over a dinner out, of which half is deductable. But we keep it reasonable – less than $25.00 per person, before the 1/2 reduction for tax purposes. I’ve easily survived a tax audit based on such bookkeeping.
Other small and medium-sized businesses don’t necessarily exercise such limitations. How many small businesses really need to supply their executive officers with cars? How many need to conduct their annual corporate meetings in Hawaii, Mexico, or on a Carribean cruise, with all expenses of the board members and officers (who happen to all be in the same family) paid by the family corporation?
Of course, that’s just pennies compared to the large corporate perks which convert what would ostensibly be income to the corporate officers and board members to “business expenses”. Corporate ski/hunting lodges in Montana (or condos in Manhattan) “expensed” as meeting or entertainment expense? Business jets on standby for fact-finding missions with the family to Paris and Rome?
… Moving expenses if you move more than 50 miles, office machines (computers, scanners, printers), paper, ink — must I continue???
‘cleaning chemicals, phone bills …..
You will get out of your tax return the effort that you put into it.
restaurant receipts (“Is this a business lunch???”
“Why yes, Yes it is!”
…motels/hotels It goes on and on. I don’t look upon confusing IRS form instructions as a barrier, but merely as a prompt to go find that deduction.
My point is this: The same deductions that corporations use, you can also avail yourself of. But I can tell you this: If that became a widespread practice among the citizenry, the rules would change for you in a nanosecond — but not for the rich.
Once you have done this a few times, it will be fairly easy. But be dilligent about spotting the little rule changes that you will get every tax season.
As we used to frequently remind ourselves in the sixties: “Leave no turn un-stoned!”
Postage…..
Translation: rich get richer and the poor/middle class gets the bill
Where’s the beef?? Policing a woman’s womb and endless wars of choice obviously.
Limbaugh voucher school vs Sean Insanity’s outfit?
Uhhh.. That TN fire department begs to differ.. Only a matter of time before the cops follow suit. Got a break-in in progress?? Pull out your mastercard..
That you are pal!
Busted KLOWN friendo.
The unions ought to incorporate and have an IPO then they’d become people…
Insanity needs to stop yes. In your case it will be when the grim reaper cometh as you weren’t raptured last Friday.
zzzzZZZZZZzzzzz. Here comes Walkerstan to WA State. Tis a dream… fondly to be wished – in the “minds” of right wing degenerates…
Ranking well down in the bottom half in per-pupil k-12 school expenditures.. We’ll get to Texas’ level yet if Walkerstan comes this way.
Oh and is WA State’s per capita government expenditures a bit high compared to other states? Well blame that on the State Constitution which mandates basic education being covered by Olympia..
translation: lower rich people’s taxes..
eternal wars and fancy new military boats and jets excepted…
i.e. by the rich, for the rich.. everyone else? You’re on own when you’re not cannon fodder for the next war…
@35 “If you deduct something as a ‘business expense’, it is no longer ‘income’.”
Technically that’s true, in the sense that the tax code allows deduction of “business expenses” that aren’t expenses at all and provides plenty of income exemptions. And then there are the legions of self-employed folks who, as generous as the tax code is for small business owners, simply lie and cheat.
Take, for example, my next door neighbors. They own and manage about 20 rental houses. On a weekly basis, we see contractors coming to their residence to maintain the grounds, paint, repair, and spruce up. These people never left a finger themselves to keep up their home. Okay, you say, they’re successful and can pay someone else to do it — what’s wrong with that? Nothing, except, what do you want to bet they’ve incorporated their property-owning business, and are paying these contractors and service people on the corporation’s dime, and deducting their personal yard maintenance, furnace repairs, etc. as “business expenses” against the income generated by their rental business? I’ll go farther and bet money they’re also deducting the utility bills on their personal residence as “business expenses.”
You see, what these people do is, they own 21 homes … rent out 20 of them … and live in 1 on a rotating basis. All 21 properties are owned by their corporation, so everything is a “business expense.”
If I hire someone to clean out my sewer drain, I have to pay for it with after-tax dollars, and pay sales tax to the state. And I don’t get to deduct it.
Oh, and one more thing, my neighbors are Republicans … I also have to listen to them whine about taxes they don’t pay.
Let’s see, you were saying something about “business expenses” aren’t “income.” I’ve been a lawyer for nearly 40 years, and although I don’t claim to be a tax specialist, as I recall if you own a business (or even if you don’t) and the business gives you something for personal use that you don’t reimburse the business for, you have to report it and pay taxes on it as personal income, regardless of whether the business deducted it as a “business expense” on its taxes or showed it as a subtraction from income in its financial statement.
I wonder how many small business owners and self-employed people actually do that? Maybe three or four in the whole country? If that many? Who the hell do you think you’re kidding.
@43 “The same deductions that corporations use, you can also avail yourself of.”
Really? I can deduct my Gulfstream jet?
This is the same crowd that argues taxes paid by the poor and middle class — us — for smaller class sizes and better teacher pay is “wasteful government spending,” even though we want to pay those taxes and the rich don’t have to.
Re 48: If you had one, you could. Maybe folks like you and I could take our deductions on a Subaru Tribeca.
Same principle as the jet deduction. All I’m saying is that if you follow the rules, you can make the same sorts of deductions as a corporation does.
I too long for a perfect world, but as long as I am in the here and now; I’ll have to make the best of it.
We live in a country that imprisons Martha Stewart for something relatively trivial and does nothing to punish those in high places who thieve and rock the financial world with their crapola.
In a system like that, do I think the law should pursue your neighbors for their little bending of the tax rules? No, I don’t. When there is equal justice, then maybe. Until then, you’re like the person who intrepidly chases down the miscreant smoking in the shopping mall, but doesn’t do anything about the coal burning power plant 30 miles down the road.
////
There’s plenty of people living on the streets without even a box. Those people with boxes to live in ought to STFU, they’re living the good life compared to the box-less.
“The ugly truth is that virtually all of the major defense contractors in this country for years have been engaged in systemic fraudulent behavior, while receiving hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money,” Sanders said in a statement.”
All the more reason to end the empire, not just in Afghanistan and Iraq, but throughout the entire world. Get out of foreign alliances and entanglements.
@35,
“…they’ve incorporated their property-owning business, and are paying these contractors and service people on the corporation’s dime, and deducting their personal yard maintenance, furnace repairs, etc. as “business expenses” against the income generated by their rental business…”
I saw a set of books once wherein the business owner was deducting the costs of his groceries and his kids’ tuitions at private schools from the income stream of the biz. Yeah, it won’t be long before he’s invited to explain that business technique to the IRS auditors!
As far as the corporate form goes, it was invented to keep the owners from loosing everything if things turned to shit. It’s a valid way to have some protection against lawsuits, but it can certainly be abused!
@53,
One way to stop this kind of fraud is to simply have a flat rate tax.
Back in the day a lot of people around here owned gill net fishing boats as they could fish them in the summer and fall, get a little bit of cash in their pockets, a freezer full of salmon, have a boat to dink around on, and write most of the expense off on their taxes.
Not a bad gig really and it gave a lot people extra Christmas money and fed a bunch of folks. It was a scam to some degree, but it wasn’t out and out greed and meism. They fed people, and had to buy nets and parts for their boats and helped keep a few folks employed.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
http://www.latimes.com/health/.....9099.story
I can’t believe that all the rich Republicans who hate Obama (even though he’s bent over backwards to appease them at every turn) are trying to walk this guy in front of all the brain-washed right wing haters out there!
I just can’t stop laughing at this shit!
re 54: How about a graduated flat tax rate? Your solution is analogous to the diet doctor who recommends the same diet and exercise program for every patient no matter to age, gender, weight, etc….
@57
I’d go for that. End all deductions, period.
# 57, 58: To the extent we were talking about business expenses, a flat-rate tax is no cure. If we abolish business expense deductions we just get into something similar to the current state B&O tax, which taxes businesses even if they lost money.
And since there is a big difference between types of businesses (manufacturing vs. retail vs. service, etc.), no one flat tax, graduated or not, can really deal with it. But once you start playing with different tax rates for different categories of businesses, you end up with the big businesses with lots of lobbying power carving out special preferred rates for themselves (example: Boeing and the Seattle Times).
No, there’s really no substitute for clear tax rules and a reasonable enforcement effort. And when there is an element of personal benefit, rather than business benefit, the IRS should take a good look at whether it is “reasonably necessary”.
As much as I disliked Reagan’s budget priorities, tax cuts, and defense strategy, he was right about one thing – in 1980 it was time to throw out the tax code and start over, in order to get rid of a vast range of entrenched special-interest tax provisions. The resulting re-vamped tax code was an improvement, even though the rate structure on the wealthy was un-sustainable (but that could be, and was fixed later).
@59
I did the Michael Mind Meld and was talking about personal income tax.
Or as they call it in D.C., the John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham slush fund.
@54 Yeah, I’m for the rich paying the same tax rates the rest of us have to pay.