You went to a lot of trouble to miss the point entirely, sailorcurt.

Way back up there, it was James, not me, who argued contrary to your thesis:

So, whether you say “corporations pay no taxes” or “individuals pay no taxes” is irrelevant.

His argument was that it is entirely relevant.

Now watch as I kick the supports out from under your tedious rant with one little kick:

Taxes are nothing more than a business expense

This is false. It is an entirely incorrect statement. Why? Because corporate income taxes are assessed on profits, not on production, not on sales, not on materials, and not on wages. They are assessed after the completion of all business activities. Thus they are not an “expense.”

Now for added amusement:

Government doesn’t produce anything.

No? Do you drive a car? Did private enterprise “produce” the roads you drive on? Do you live in a town where criminals are apprehened, tried, and jailed? Does a private company do that for you?

Do you ever eat in restaurants that adhere to a standard of cleanliness? Does some start-up in the restaurant cleanliness sector make sure? Do you live in a country protected by a powerful private military?

Then I guess you’re right. Government doesn’t produce anything. Not where you live.

Way back up there, it was James, not me, who argued contrary to your thesis:

So, whether you say “corporations pay no taxes” or “individuals pay no taxes” is irrelevant.

His argument was that it is entirely relevant.

Now watch as I kick the supports out from under your tedious rant with one little kick:

Taxes are nothing more than a business expense

This is false. It is an entirely incorrect statement. Why? Because corporate income taxes are assessed on profits, not on production, not on sales, not on materials, and not on wages. They are assessed after the completion of all business activities. Thus they are not an “expense.”

Now for added amusement:

Government doesn’t produce anything.

No? Do you drive a car? Did private enterprise “produce” the roads you drive on? Do you live in a town where criminals are apprehened, tried, and jailed? Does a private company do that for you?

Do you ever eat in restaurants that adhere to a standard of cleanliness? Does some start-up in the restaurant cleanliness sector make sure? Do you live in a country protected by a powerful private military?

Then I guess you’re right. Government doesn’t produce anything. Not where you live.

Jay: “You’re right. Nobody ever dies in war.”

In every war people die. That’s why you don’t enter into a war lightly. You only go in if the rewards outweight the risks, and you only go in if you have a solid plan. The Iraq war fails on both fronts.

“Contrary to what you liberals believe, the history of the Iraq War hasn’t yet been written.”

At this point, I have a hard time imagining an outcome in Iraq that would tilt the scales in Bush’s favor. At least no a likely outcome.

Because your competition has the same tax rates you do. If the corporation increases its fees or prices simply to raise profits, the competition will simply undercut them and they’ll lose market share.

When the increased cost of doing business is across the board, the competition will have to raise fees or prices as well.

Taxes are nothing more than a business expense (as is the army of lawyers required to ensure that the company is staying within the letter of the 60,000 pages of tax code) just like any other business expense.

If the business expense is increased, the prices WILL increase…and some companies will move their operations to less onerous tax environments.

People need to make enough money to eat, keep a roof over their heads, and give the kids a Wii for Christmas. If they don’t make enough, they’ll give up and stop working.

Spoken like a true liberal.

Actually, you could look at it from the other direction. The business expense associated with labor includes all aspects of remuneration. Wages (including taxes), Benefits, vacation time retirement plans, etc. They are all a part of the business expenses of the company.

Just like prices charged for goods or services, the company must strike a balance between the cost of the labor it employs and the quantity of goods and services produced. Individual income taxes, sales taxes, etc all play into that because the employees must make enough money to pay all those taxes and still have enough left over for HD TV service, car payments and those spinny wheel things…while at the same time, the company must keep labor costs low enough to maintain its profit margin.

So it could just as easily be said that corporations pay all of the taxes…well…except for self employed people and small businesses…but that’s not germane to this discussion.

The bottom line (and the point of the oversimplification of saying that corporations don’t pay taxes) is that increased taxes affect us ALL…not just the target of that taxation. It upsets the balance that exists and creates conditions that affect EVERYONE’S bottom line. Taxing “the rich” or taxing “corporations” or taxing dead people doesn’t just affect the targets of that taxation.

Government does not and cannot generate wealth. Government doesn’t produce anything. It constantly operates at a loss, has no competition and no incentive for efficiency or productivity. Government is a consumer of resources, not a producer.

Transferring wealth from the private sector…the wealth generating engine if you will…to the government sector, reduces the wealth of the entire nation…not just those from whom it is taken.

So, whether you say “corporations pay no taxes” or “individuals pay no taxes” is irrelevant. The point is that we ALL pay, either directly from our income, earnings and as tariffs on the things we buy…or indirectly through increased prices for goods and services, layoffs, lowered wages and benefits, or companies and jobs simply moving overseas.

Tax the rich and those evil, terrible companies all you want. You’ll still end up paying…whether you realize it or not.

I’ve served in the Army (E-5 if you know what that means), and you are a chickenhawk who would wet his pants if I growled at you. (These days I have a job that also separates me from wimps like you: I move pianos.)

Contrary to your successful attempt at stupidity, people do die in wars, and a lot of innocent Iraqis died in a war over WMD that were not there. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died because of us, as well as a lot of our own people. How do you think the relatives of all the people we killed feel about the United States?

What did we get for our trillion dollars and all that blood? Could the money that we borrowed from the Communist Chinese have been better spent building a school and a hospital in every county of the United States, or was breaking stuff and killing people the best way to spend it?

Please tell me what we got for our money that was the wisest choice for spending it.

no one was killed

You’re right. Nobody ever dies in war.

Excuse me, I have to go catch my eyes as they’ve just rolled out of my head.

So the infrastructure still works, no one was killed, no one was tortured, there WERE WMD, and it didn’t cost anything?

You are showing why wingnuts are not taken seriously by thinking people.

Jay’s right. I hear some schools were painted.

Except it wasn’t a disaster.

Contrary to what you liberals believe, the history of the Iraq War hasn’t yet been written.

Obama figured it out and said so before it was cool to say it.

Yeah, when he was a state senator. The bravery!

Figuring out that an invasion of Iraq was a certain disaster seems like a good test of a candidate’s ability to understand things that are so simple that millions of Americans figure them out with absolutely no help from the media. Obama figured it out and said so before it was cool to say it.

If my then-83-year old mother could figure out that invading Iraq was a bad idea, surely those with access to more information could figure it out. But they didn’t, did they? Obviously my mom is better qualified for the presidency than either Hillary or McCain, but she doesn’t want the job.

Suppose we turn his argument around and insist that there are no…ahem…NO taxes on individuals. How can I possibly make such a wild claim?

By employing James’ sterling logic.

People need to make enough money to eat, keep a roof over their heads, and give the kids a Wii for Christmas. If they don’t make enough, they’ll give up and stop working.

That’s why it’s up to corporations to raise wages enough to cover individual taxes and leave enough in people’s paychecks to pay the bills.

In that case, Great Success! McCain is largely unacceptable to voters.

What? Oooooh….

It follows that McCain’s main task is to make him unacceptable to voters — and particularly to non-black working-class voters. He has to first raise concerns about Obama and then show how his candidacy addresses those concerns.

Lee Atwater would have been so proud!

Keep digging, that pony must be in there somewhere.

Is it a horse?

Well, after reading that steaming pile, I have no doubt what a conservative is.

hell even France is swinging more Concervative (sic) because their President knows YOU CAN NOT SPEND MORE THAN YOU TAKE IN !

I wish our President knew that.