Wonder how many of these folks are actually Wal-Mart greeters?

Ignoring our idiot friends on the right for a moment, I just gotta say I love Obama’s ju-jitsu policy move in just allowing the pre-Bush marginal rates to return, but only on the higher brackets.

The Republicans sold this tax cut by giving smaller cuts to the lower brackets and a big cut for their base, so to just back out the upper marginal rate cuts in 2011 is brilliant politics and eminently fair.

This trillion dollar deficit isn’t going to fix itself.

No way any of those folks are smart enough to be making $250K a year

The notion of the two-percenters as victims is gonna be a hard sell, but not as hard as the Fats Limbaugh trailer trash as patriots.

Wait. How is taking vegetables from your sister’s garden going to lower your taxable income to below $250,000?

And HOW can you going all hippie commune and doing joint gardening more capitalist & less marxist?

Then there is the guy who won’t work overtime to stay “well below” $250k. Anyone want to take a stab at how “well below” he is? Who do you know that reaches a quarter million dollars a year from “overtime”?

What’s funny to me is that by dropping out, these people will actually be helping the economy. It’s like they don’t understand anything about economics. Conservatives are the fucking lulz.

They should leave a map for their descendants, so that a thousand years from now, when the nation returns to 1980’s sanity, the offspring can find the hidden cache of Mary Kay products and pick up the life intended by the founders, as if nothing happended.

I hope the last commenter’s hubby is 65, or he’s in for a nasty surprise at the local SSA office. And hope she’s still employed and eligible for employer sponsored health insurance. 2 years is a long time to go without at their (presumed) age.

Can’t count the number of 60-64 y/o folks I encountered in my prior job as an onc social worker, who decided to save money by “taking a risk” and not carrying health insurance until they reached 65. And then were surprised that their investments prevented them from getting medical assistance. “I have to spend whaaaaattt???”

I was witness to awful lot of those kind of bad days….

Like quite a few previous commentors I also doubt that any of wingnuts quoted early anything like $250,000 but lets play pretend and assume that they do…

So we have all these successful businessmen and executives cutting back on work and they hours they do to avoid the dreaded increase in tax and not because of the terrible state that the economy is in. All they are doing is spite-ing themselves as other people, younger, hungrier and not so scared of a small increase in tax will quickly fill the vacuum that these morons have left, which will probably be a good thing for the American economy as SvladJelly above, points out.

But really I seriously doubt any of the commentators that you quote have earnt $250,000 in a game of Monopoly let alone in real, hard, spendable, money.

NONE of the people I know who earn $250K/year–such as the manly Mr. Biscuitbarrel, or my best female friend–comment on anyone’s blogs. They’re working at their offices, supporting families. Most of their contact with blogs comes from our conversations, or from the links I send.

Back when I was earning in the low five figures, working one, two, or three jobs, I wouldn’t have had time, either.

The conservatives STILL think this song is about them.

If those are the “successful entrepreneurs” who need to be rewarded with mucho moolah for all their brilliant contributions to the capitalist society, then we are well and truly fucked. If, on the other hand, they’re really just the 22nd Gardening & Homeschooling Brigade of the 101st Keyboarders, then it all makes so much more sense.

You don’t need to be that smart to make $250K a year. You just have to have no morals and no shame, and a lot of luck. Rich parents help too.

And of course, you have those who make $250K a year by getting educated and pursuing a worthy profession that is a credit to society. In that case, it does takes a lot of brains and hard work to succeed. Though, even there, with the current state of education in the US, rich parents help there too.

Wait, what’s that?

That beautiful, beautiful sound?

Why, I believe it’s an orchestra of the world’s tiniest violins!

They’re playing the concerto “Fuck The Rich And Eat Their Children in E Flat!”

That’s a Haydn piece, if I’m not mistaken.

Hey, I’m joining the movement! As my freelance business dwindles, I will be “lowering my tax profile” like a real patriot! Of course, I won’t be traveling this year, or getting that new bike I’ve been wanting. I don’t go out to eat much, am using savings to pay health insurance premiums, and probably won’t be dropping my customary sum at the garden center this spring. Though I never made anything close to $250k, I can still get my kicks sticking it to Hussein and Nancy Pelosi, right? I sure hope the guy that owns the bike shop and the couple who started the nice little bistro in my neighborhood and the garden center people can get on board with the whole take-back-our-country-by-through-indigence thing.

The bestest part about that last comment you quoted? That “going Galt” involves–wait for it–relying on the government. You’d think that it would mean spurning Medicare and Social Security and every other “socialist” government effort, wouldn’t you? Isn’t that what a purist would do?

I have a friend who is planning to not work overtime this year to stay well below the dangerous benchmark that is 250k. His point was that he might as well take some time off and enjoy and relax rather than work and give every dollar above 250 away.

this “friend” is a blithering idiot who doesn’t understand the tax system. while that seems unusual for someone with that much money, it is apparently very common among True Patriots.

If they really want to “Go Galt” I suggest they all go work for or invest with Roger Simon’s Pajama Media empire. That way they can type little blurbs about objectivism or mash notes to Rush all day, while keeping well below the magic 250K mark. It’s a win-win for them. Though the better term in keeping with the current direction of the right would be lose-lose.

My favorite comment:

My name is John Paulson (no relation to Hank) and I manage a hedge fund. Last year I made $1.8 million dollars….. an HOUR! And my tax rate on that $3.7 billion in CASH was only 15%!!! Suck on that you losers! You think I’m gonna try to make less this year because of a couple percentage points more in taxes that still won’t bring my rate up to yours? Hahahahahaha.

(Note: Since he didn’t spell it “loosers” I’m inclined to think it’s authentic.)

Heh.

Anyone who’s ever made more than 100K in a year knows that there’s a cutoff right around there to the amount that one person can make from his endeavors alone, simply because there aren’t hours enough in the day. If you want to get beyond that hump and earn more, you have to hire someone to help you, at least part-time. Which is an unconscienable confiscation of YOUR MONEY!

But seriously, though. If you’re going to earn over 100K, it’s because you have a secretary, or an assistant, or more than one of these doing the work to get that money in the door. And yet somehow, millions of business owners each year decide that it’s worth earning a bit less (and actually, we’re talking a whole lot less than the puny 4% tax increase that has these folks up in arms) to pay someone so they can make that extra money.

It’s like they think none of the rest of us live in the real world, either. Like we don’t know people who are more than willing to give up another $4 out of each $100 earned over $250K in order to keep the rest.

None of these jokers is making $250K a year. As others have pointed out, people earning at that level don’t have time to putz around on the blogs – at least not unless they’re paying someone else to do the actual work. In which case, they’re already paying out a lot more than a lousy fricken’ extra 4% to earn more.

I’ve been couponing for over a year now and have a nice stockpile of food for when things get really, really bad.

Translation: “When the fuck are things going to get really, really bad so I can live out my pathetic hero fantasies?!”

Let’s not forget that gun shops are reporting shortages of ammo since Obama was elected. Those varmints don’t shoot themselves, you know.

My favorite comment: “I shut down my online businesses in early November, I don’t remember why.” So easily mocked in so many ways.

@pbfishtaco: “Let’s not forget that gun shops are reporting shortages of ammo since Obama was elected. Those varmints don’t shoot themselves, you know.”

If you give them enough guns, they will.

To “go Galt” is to help chlorinate the economic pool. Anyone stupid enough to do it isn’t doing any good anyway.

What part of marginal tax rates do people making $250K not understand? Going over that magic mark doesn’t do anything to the rest of your wages.

But, I guess you wouldn’t understand if you weren’t making enough to get a marginal tax increase (~$8000).

So we’re supposed to be sorry that wingnuts are going to spend their money on goods and services rather than horde it all in tax-free financial paper? These people really haven’t got the faintest notion of a clue, have they? And I think the garden vegetables story was to show that in protest of this tax tyranny, the writer is willing to go so far as to eat evil liberal fascist organic foods! The horror!

I have a friend who is planning to not work overtime this year to stay well below the dangerous benchmark that is 250k. His point was that he might as well take some time off and enjoy and relax rather than work and give every dollar above 250 away. I don’t blame his reasoning and the loss is, he spends his money.

Penthouse Republican has a unionized job where they get overtime (and get to decide to take overtime or not). Now, there are a few master electricians that make that much, but how seriously how many other hourly workers are even close to being in that ballpark?

Most people making that kind of scratch are not working hourly wages, and have no way to choose to work less even if they want to. Seems like anybody who has had at least one non-McJob in their life would know that. I dunno, maybe there really are a lot of hourly workers making twice as much as most family doctors, three times as much as most attorneys, four times as much as most professors, five times as much as most professional musicians, speech therapists or social workers — all jobs that require at least a master’s degree and way more than 40 hours a week to do.

If so, Obama certainly shouldn’t be trying to increase the number of people going to college or creating new jobs if there are already a lot of extremely high paying jobs that total morons can do only when they feel like it out there.

Or maybe they think that “K” means hundreds. That would explain so much here.

It seems like there should be a term for this type of hilariously clueless pretending to be an outraged rich person schtick. Wurtzelbacking, perhaps? Theplummering? Beverly Shillbillying?

I remember Michael Moore had a bit on TV Nation where he went around interviewing rich people and poor people and asking them how much certain things cost — a gallon of milk, the extra value meal, etc. I’d like to do the opposite — go around one of these tea party rallies and see how many of these fauxtraged Wurtzelbackers actually know how much monocle cream or a summer home in the Hamptons or a competent accountant actually costs.

I shut down my online businesses in early November, I don’t remember why.

Let me help you: does the phrase “just ahead of the subpoenas” ring a bell?

As a small business owner, I’d much prefer to pay higher taxes on more income than lower taxes on lower income. What part of economics and recession do these geniuses not understand?

Gotta agree with comsympinko, these wretched excuses for human beings should be nicely marbled due to their rich diets, consumed at the expense of hungry people everywhere. They should be quite tender & tasty, I’m thinking slow-smoked with a nice sauce. They obviously have no other value to the rest of humanity, but maybe when cut into steaks & chops, they can keep some hungry working families who have NOT spent their entire lives scamming their fellow man fed.

Hmmm… that one guy says he will cut back on overtime to stay under $250K. By my calcs, his hourly rate would have to be well over $100/hr. How many non-exempt (that is, paying an hourly wage with overtime) jobs pay that much?

Several of the commenters are threatening/promising to make changes that would actually benefit society — cutting back on consumption, planting victory gardens, etc. (even if they will be standing guard over their cabbages with assualt weapons).

This is an unexpected side-benefit of Obama’s proposed budget.

What part of economics and recession do these geniuses not understand?

All of it. They are of the Lucky Ducky school of thought. Why make anything? By having no income at all, you don’t have to pay any federal taxes.

I just went and read all the comments. My goodness tbogg, I thought you were cherry-picking but if anything you were being way too kind.

So how soon before Obama’s “civilian corps” (or whatver Orwellian term they come up with) is delegated with the task of MAKING sure people work to support his spending spree?

Indeed, who could imagine the government forcing people to work through an Orwellian-named social program. I guess if Obama called it welfare reform they’d be cool with it?

You really think the people who voted for that fool actually work? Or have a real job that offers a 401K? Heck no. They just want what’s yours to be theirs. Remember? Obama’s going to pay their mortgage, their gas, etc.

Did you know that there are at least 67 million unemployed people in America and they all believe in socialism? I did not. I’m glad they invented the internet so I could learn valuable facts such as these.

Hey, this just occured to me. Maybe the REAL reason Obama won is because all the “real Americans” were too busy at work to be able to vote (and only ACORN-loving commies vote early).

I’ll be reading so many more books soon, if that sort of thing is still allowed.

Yeah, going to the library and getting less ignorant will really stick it to the man!

The silliest thing I’ve ever heard O’Reilly say was this evening when he bloviating about how those that invest in the stock market were punishing Wall St. by not investing until they clean up their corruption and graft. It has never occurred to the “BIG O” that investors are closing their wallets because they don’t trust the new “sheriff in town” on Pennsylvania Ave..

Thanks, uh, 24K lady. Hopefully the K’s for karat. Though if this were Sarah Palin, and she certainly has that same je ne sais rien that Palin does, the K could be for Kollege.

Seems like a lot of people graduate from Harvard without learning very much, Bill O’Really is a good example.

Those Harvard boys and their understanding of the basic laws of causality and their “historical facts” and “actual evidence”. Morans.

Travel is bad, people. You might wind up going to Las Vegas or somewhere equally “unacceptable”…

Sarah Palin was just telling me that real hard working Americans don’t travel, that’s only something that Democrats with trust funds do. Is travel good or bad?

I really really hope Nevada gets their act together and legalizes weed so these idiots will start going to Branson instead. Las Vegas would be a lot more fun without all the Republicans. Plus, you know, tableside bong service.

I think “Going John Galt” will soon be phrase millions of people will become very familiar with.

I don’t think it’ll be in the way they exactly intend. Do these chuckleheads know that Obama did dramatically better among rich people than John Kerry did? That he got over 50% of the vote of people making more than 200K a year? And that Gore would’ve beaten the codpiece off of Dubya in 2000 if only poor people hadn’t been allowed to vote? That poor people voting Republican are the main reason why the Democrats have been out of power for so long?

I’d only be cutting off my own nose if I were going to benefit from the money. Who is willing to work for 60% of their pay?

But they’re willing to work for 64% of their pay now?

I don’t know why these people think that a 4% increase in taxes on 1% of Americans in two years is going to get a groundswell of support when they can’t even stir up a crowd with abortion, religion, hating gay people, etc. anymore, but I’m happy to see them try it. I was one of those people who thought that the election of Obama would be the death of comedy, that these people would finally get a clue, start behaving almost rationally, and so forth. Boy was I wrong.

The worst part about those comments isn’t the I Am John Galt ranting, but that it’s obvious that most of these people just don’t understand how our tax system works. This whole “keep it under $250K” thing is because they are incapable of understanding that the higher rate will not apply to the first $249,999.

I mean it — don’t even bother trying to (re-)explain this to them. I’ve tried. Some people are simply incapable of understanding it. I guess the math is too hard.

No wonder it’s so easy to make it in America — all of the people who’ve finally broken through and started to make real money take themselves out of the game when someone deigns to raise their taxes a measly 4%. I doubt Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter or any of the other, uh, “leading lights” (with sincere apologies to light for besmirching its name) of the conservative movement are giving up their gigs just because someone ups their taxes. The funniest thing about Libertarians is their own ideology (even when it’s correctly applied) guarantees their irrelevance.

I shut down my online businesses in early November, I don’t remember why.

I loved that quote too. What, too many drugs to remember why you shut down your business?

And re the guy who’s got his “nice stockpile of food” from all that “couponing:” even canned goods have an expiration date. I’ll also bet the nitwit forgot to include a can opener in his fallout shelter.

Two additional comments that deserve highlighting:

On March 2nd, 2009 at 10:50 pm, Marie said:

#51 Jet – Please realize that USA is at the top of the food chain here. Other countries are tanking and already in the hands of socialists – or worse. This little mortgage trick has been going on for a long time. Bad paper has been peddled all over the world. There are no hiding places.

Thanks. I know… our real Hope is in the next life. Christians are not citizens of this world but of God’s Kingdom. One day, our Benevolent Dictator will straiten out this mess.

I can’t even comprehend this, what appears to be racist, insanity:

On March 2nd, 2009 at 11:23 pm, RabbidSquirrel said:

Theres a lot of abandoned water wells in rural Iowa that people accidentally fall into every once in a while….

“Now that’s a real shame when folks be throwin’ away a perfectly good white boy like that”

If their “real hope” is in the “next life,” how about all these fools just don’t vote?

Arggh. The “if their ‘real hope’” line was supposed to go after the first quote.

Where’s that damn edit feature?

crazy ..eh .. i run a small business .. and i have always used “tax planning” .. when we get to a point we’re incurring big taxes .. we’ve got a profit sharing plan we dump into ..

IOW.. we vend the money back to those who helped us make it .. rather than sending it to the gub’mint .. and we get to be “heroes” …at no cost to ourselves .. it’s not like we could have kept the money ..

these folks commenting “over there” are fakers .. and clueless as well ..

By my calcs, his hourly rate would have to be well over $100/hr. How many non-exempt (that is, paying an hourly wage with overtime) jobs pay that much?

Ahem, I believe a top of the line hooker could expect such a return. It would be very sad if there were less high quality paid-for sex available due to Obama’s attempt to increase revenue. Luckily this will not happen. There will just be a bit more income that must go unreported, with very little angst.

I feel the brain cells shrinking simply by reading these comments. If I can get a tax cut in the middle of my easy, privileged life, “Marxism” is not what is going on. Also it is not a disaster to have your taxes raised to what they were in the 1990s. Your tax rate forty years earlier would have been much higher. Also think that the easy money which created this situation may be going towards your income.

(Our financial situation depends on Bob Gates the same as it did on January 19th)

So, is Limbaugh going to renegotiate his contract with Clear Channel? He’d be nuts to leave himself $37,750,000 above the crucial cut off point. He’d earn much more if he could get Clear Channel to agree to pay him $249,999 per year instead of $38,000,000. And of course he’d want them to omit the $100,000,000 signing bonus.

er, folks. This idiocy isn’t confined to the wingnut brigade..

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6975547

According to ABC, one attorney “plans to cut back on her business to get her annual income under the quarter million mark should the Obama tax plan be passed by Congress and become law.” According to the attorney: “We are going to try to figure out how to make our income $249,999.00.” ABC also quotes a dentist who is trying to figure out how to reduce her income.

http://mediamatters.org/county…..013?show=1

I propose that all Real Americans upload their income tax forms to demonstrate their future pain and anguish.

And then…. Kerners Are Go!

LOL, from Jon Chait

Oh my God, the stupidity. The article then quotes a financial advisor who explains the way that tax brackets rates work, but then quotes a right-wing business professor and the subjects of her article fulminating about class warfare. Pretty clearly the reporter started off on her mistaken premise, found some subjects who shared her ignorance, and then came across a financial advisor who gently corrected her. But, instead of nixing the collosally uninformed article, or writing a different kind of article (”Rich Morons Decreasing Own Income Due To Lack of Tax Code Knowledge”) she instead plowed ahead with her initial premise.

Heh, comment from the TNR link above -

ratnerstar said:

Attention high-earners! Worried about Obama’s proposed tax increase? You should be! If you earn over 250,000 dollars a year, the government will take all your money and give it to homosexuals. Also, some of it will be used to wantonly expose your children to science.

But it doesn’t have to be this way! You can safeguard your livelihood by sending any income over 249,99.99 to me, ratnerstar — for free! That’s right, the government doesn’t get your money and you don’t owe me a thing! Sound too good to be true? It isn’t! Just mail a certified cashier’s check to ….

“certainly has that same je ne sais rien that Palin does”

I don’t speak French so I had to go to Babelfish for the translation. Thanks for the laugh, liminalist.

I don’t know if everyone has the same experience but, I automatically went Galt when I turned sixty.

Long time lurker, First time commenter—-

Here is what I find really interesting: I once worked fgor a Very Rich Man when I worked inside the beltway. (no, Not any longer, thank you!) and this VRM told ME–the lowest paid person in the office that he paid MUCH more in taxes than I did. I said then he needed to get a new accountant because there were obviously some loopholes that weren’t being explored.

After Obama was elected, He was whining and crying about having to pay taxes on his offshore investments and other stuff (whaaaa–he was worth 47 million…Like I cared oh boo fucking hoo) Little did he know that he wouldn’t be subject to the tax because his actual on paper NOT INVESTMENT or ASSET income was lower then 250K. This was supposedly a Wharton Business school grad with several degrees……and even I knew that he wouldn’t be affected.

What a Tool.

I had to explain this whole marginal tax rate thing to several of my college-educated relatives. It’s not something most people are actually aware of. Of course, I also pointed out to them that the top marginal tax rate during the Eisenhower years was 91%–something most American don’t know.

Wonder how many of these folks are actually Wal-Mart greeters?

They heard Malkin say it affected those making six figures and didn’t realize you weren’t supposed to count those two decimal places!

I had to look up the John Galt reference at wikipedia. Given the plot description, I’m really glad I never bothered to read that stupid novel.

Re the marginal tax thing — maybe people’s eyes are glazing over at the words “marginal tax rate”? I confess I’ve never quite understood the “marginal” terminology – but I do know about tax rates on the first $x.xx amount of income, and the different rate on the $x.00 over that amt.

That’s probably because I do my own income taxes, and so many people are convinced that they can’t do their own taxes (even tho’ their entire income is from one or two salaries), so they never have to figure this stuff out.
Obviously, though, even college education is not what it should be.

I’m thinking the attorney who claims she’ll have to let clients go is either putting on the reporter, or -Gawd help me- experiencing early senility??? I suppose she just pays an accountant to do her taxes, signs the form, and forgets about it. What else could possibly explain her ignorance?
And I shdder to think what subjects she is “counselling” so many clients on.
I am not in the least a numbers person, but even I learneda little bit about business and taxation in law school. Sheesh.

It must be something in the koolaid that these rightwing neocons drink. Do they honestly think that their protestations about the Obama will be believed by anyone. These GOP deadenders refuse to face reality and live in their own fantasies of fearing that someone else might get a bigger piece of pie than them.

People who make overtime do not ever make $250K. There are certainly skilled tradespeople who make half that. And if they become business owners and hire others, they can make $250K.

But if there’s anyone, anywhere, who makes $250K with overtime, I’ll show you someone getting paid for being in two places at once.

Oh, and BTW, if you get overtime for anything, thank unions.

See you at the Applebee’s salad bar, bitches.

I shut down my online businesses in early November, I don’t remember why.

I shut down my grow room in early November. I don’t remember why…

OhpleaseOhplease, DO move to another country. And take your F & F with you so you can have that strong American community you so desire.

We also have “gone Galt”. Hubby decided to retire and start Medicare instead of our original plan of waiting two years.

‘Cuz we don’t want the gubmint takin’ our money and givin’ it to some slackers, like, uh, us….

Ah, the comments.

One asks oneself, who can even read this crap, let alone take it seriously? And then one reads the comments, & one’s soul shrivels up just a bit more,

I make a lot of money and I pay a lot in taxes. I like paying taxes. It means that I live in a modern country with modern conveniences. I always say that I wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes, simply because it would mean that I was making more money. It’s not rocket science people, it’s just math.

…these wretched excuses for human beings should be nicely marbled due to their rich diets, consumed at the expense of hungry people everywhere. . . They obviously have no other value to the rest of humanity, but maybe when cut into steaks & chops, they can keep some hungry working families who have NOT spent their entire lives scamming their fellow man fed.

But think of the prions!