AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

I got confused over the Turbotax calculation of a hypothetical situation of how a single taxpayer with no children would fare. I did the exercise using the Form 1040 instructions and forms for 2009.
Wages: $20,000
Standard Deduction: ($5,700)
Exemptions (1): ($3,650)
= Taxable Income: $10,650

Tax from Tax Table: $1,184

I am stumbling over the Earned Income Credit. On form 1040, in a balloon is this: If you have a qualifying child, attach form EIC. Turbotax put in a $400 credit. I am not sure where that number came from. I come up with $212.
If that is correct than the tax is ($1,184 - $212) $972.

I think some people get confused and think that a tax refund means the person paid no taxes. Not true, of course, since the worker had money taken out of each paycheck.

I could have sworn I posted this: I earned $14,628.53 from two jobs and had $5,769.78 in taxable interest (I cashed in some savings bonds my Dad gave me in order to buy this computer and to pay my excise tax on my car among other things. I also had interest from the left over proceeds from the sale of my former home, which I had banked to pay my mortgage). One of the jobs was substitute teaching, which means I paid no Social Security.

I am not confused about a refund meaning no tax is paid. My tax was $284.98 and $1,648.61 was withheld.

I am soon to be 63 and have no qualifying child. My youngest is 25.

I have yet to work on my 2009 taxes.

Are you aware of how a middle ground is reached, how consensus is obtained? It is by the left and right pushing out and by the process of law finding the center.

Unfortunately, lobbyists, who more often represent the right or Big Business mess up the equation.

And, again, when you consider that most of the progress this country has made in human terms . . . abolishing slavery, ending the War in Vietnam, enfranchising women, civil rights . . . are the result of left wing philosophy and action, I have to ask just what the right ever did for this country.

I was commenting, plainoldme, on a hypothetical case of someone having wages of $20,000. Even in that "simple" case, we here could not seem to agree on what the tax would be. I was not intending to comment on your unique situation. No offense intended.

I thought you were as my tax rate had become a topic of conversation.

No, I was intending to talk about a hypothetical single person with income of $20K and how we here come up with a different tax.
And as a side anecdote, I have one employee who works for me and claims, for Federal income tax withholding, -0- deductions. She, single, gets a big refund. Another, with the same income, claims 3 deductions (a complicated history of ex-marriages and adult children). When the dust settles he gets no refund and bitches about "paying more tax," equating a smaller refund to paying more tax.

Americans can freely choose to buy many things without their choices being regulated.

The Constitution does not grant Congress and/or the President the power to compel Americans to buy health insurance from anyone. If Americans choose not to buy health insurance and instead pay their own medical bills directly, that is their privilege, since that choice in no way whatsoever deprives anyone, other than private insurance companies, of income or anything else.

Therefore, Obamacare is unconstitutional because it compels Americans to buy health insurance.

Oh, really? Like what? I'd be interested to hear your response.

Cycloptichorn

Yeah, my ex-husband as a single man claimed four deductions although he had none but did not want the government holding his money. Every time he filed, he had to pay. When I offered that many people regard withholding as forced savings, he complained that savings was a myth. My parents gave the kids savings bonds and he cashed them in. Right.

It's just RomneyCare

When you get 2009 taxes figured out, let us know. I could run your numbers in Turbo Tax, but frankly don't care to go to the trouble. I would be surprised if you did not receive more money back than you had deducted or have already paid to the government. Without checking, I would think you would in fact qualify for the earned income credit, although you would cash in alot more if you had dependent children.

If $284.98 was your 2008 taxes, it sounds like you paid in precious little to a government you desire to pay for everything for virtually everyone. Maybe you need to rethink what you expect government to be able to fund, because if it was based upon your contribution, the government would have been broke long before now, and we know it is past broke now. And where do you think the money will come from to pay for all of your wants, especially since you think businesses are evil and want all of them to go broke as well?

I now am aware why individuals like plainolme want to ravage the income and savings of those who work fifty and sixty hours a week. The people who put in those hours do so because they want to be financially independent when they retire. Such a situation is not possible when we have an administration that is heading full blast toward Socialism.

Karl Marx wrote: From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.

In short, income redistribution- The Barack Hussein Obama mantra. Obama worked as a community organizer in the Chicago Slums. Maybe that is why he is so fond of income redistribution. But what he does not know, or, perhaps, does not want to remember, is that when you cripple the ability of small and large businesses to expand because of higher taxes and cuts to the past tax deferrals, you cripple the ability of the economy to expand and create jobs.

The election in November will be decided by the attitude of the voters not so much on Health Care, but, rather, the huge Unemployment Rare.

ONLY 219 DAYS TO THE ELECTION!

parados- Are YOU "that stupid"?. If you had the ability to read The Wall Street Journal, you would find that even that august publication( incidentally, the publication with the highest daily count and far above The New York Times and USA Today) says that the GNP will rise, slowly, but surely.

Of course, the GNP will be higher in a year. But, the key statistic which the voters will be watching is not the GNP but the Unemployment rate. Even if the GNP is higher, the reluctance of most banks to lend as they have in the past and the refusal of most businesses, both large and small, to expand their payrolls is what will keep the Unemployment figure high.

You say that I am "stupid", but you are just projecting. It is you who are stupid since you do not recognize that businesses WILL NOT hire because they are fearful of the costs that will be laid on them by a Socialist leaning administration. Businesses reacted similarly during FDR's tenure. You may be ignorant of the facts but FDR was unable to get the US out of the depression until the threat of war caused a rise in employment. Businesses during the thirties, fearful of FDR's Brain Trust with their Socialistic leanings, and worried that laws he would pass(See the attempted "packing" of the Supreme Court by FDR as a great example) DID NOT expand until 1939 when war threatened the world.

Obama is making the same mistakes.
Proof of this? View the Unemployment rate in October--just before the election.
It will be at least four or five PERCENTAGE POINTS HIGHER than it was in the second tenure of William Jefferson Clinton.

Is this day six or seven of the signing of Obamacare, Parados? You are the one who referenced that measure.

Mine is different than yours. I say only 219 days till the election!

Indeed, Plainoldme

You say

Take a look at the Congressional Budget Office, which is the most trusted keeper of the economic flame.

I did and found:

Congressional Budget Office's sunny forecast carries big uncertainties

By Neil Irwin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 19, 2010

The latest estimate of what health-care reform would mean for the government's finances was such a hot document Thursday that at times the Congressional Budget Office's Web site couldn't handle the traffic.

But as much as the 25-page "score" of the legislation was treated as holy writ in Washington -- Democrats eagerly flagged its conclusion that the package they aim to pass this weekend would cut the deficit by $138 billion over the coming decade -- the reality is considerably messier.

Budget experts generally have high praise for the work of CBO analysts, the non-ideological technocrats who crunch the numbers to estimate the fiscal impact of legislation. But their work is often more art than science, and although the forecasts that accompany legislation are always filled with uncertainty, this one contains more than most.

One major reason is the sheer complexity of the legislation. If Congress were considering, say, a 20-cent increase in the gasoline tax, the CBO could easily analyze how that would affect gas consumption and do some simple math to calculate how much money it would raise. The same goes for figuring out the cost of legislation that offers a new benefit, such as an expansion of food stamps.

But the proposal on the table contains sweeping changes that would touch almost all corners of the health-care system, and the changes interrelate in hard-to-predict ways. For example, the legislation contains subsidies for those who would not be able to afford health coverage on their own -- but the cost of those subsidies could vary a lot depending on how much other elements of the legislation change the price of health insurance, such as through provisions requiring minimum coverage levels.

Although some data can help budget analysts estimate the fiscal impact of those policies, such as when similar policies were enacted in Massachusetts, the range of possible outcomes is especially wide because of the complexity involved.

"The health-care sector is incredibly complicated, with patients and doctors and insurers and hospitals and so on," said William Gale, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "There are a lot of layers and interacting agents, so it's very difficult to predict the outcome of policy changes that affect everyone's incentives."

If the CBO did its job well, the errors in estimating the costs and revenue from various elements of the legislation will cancel each other out, and the fiscal impact will be roughly according to the forecast. But budget experts identify two scenarios that could cause the results to vary dramatically.

The bill contains numerous provisions meant to reduce the long-run growth in the cost of health care, such as by funding "comparative effectiveness research" to figure out what treatment strategies offer the most bang for the buck. Insurance companies would push their customers to pursue those treatments and thus keep costs down.

I just spent 2 adn 1/2 hours watching a paranoid movie by a conspiracy theorist who claims not to be on the right.

I recommend watching it . . . it will prepare all of you for what they are thinking . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU

I detest TurboTax.

Parados --- Congratulations! Massagat called you stupid, a sure sign that you are articulate and on track!

Even the Wall Street Journal agrees with me? Are you saying that makes me stupid?

OK.. MASSAGAT.. Your turn to put your money where you mouth is. I have already offered to bet $1000 that unemployment will be less in one year. Are you willing to back up your statement? Or are you a silly fear monger like the others that make the claim that unemployment will increase? This is easy money for you MASSAGAT if you think we really will have increased unemployment.

But you won't bet, will you POSSUM?

pom, I watched a little of the beginning. I am not necessarily a conspiracy theorist at all, but I do believe a couple of things, one being that leftists around the world understand that the United States represents an economic power they deeply resent because they know they are inferior to us, and they also understand the United States has a been a beacon of freedom and liberty while they represent mediocrity or worse, and they are full of envy and jealosy of that power, and they would like to beat us down and take it from us. Also, leftists also understand the communist / Marxist policies have been proven a failure, but they still persist in believing their narcissistic view of the world that if only they could ever get it right, their philosophy will work, after all it looks good on paper, to each according to his need. And so they continue to look for a new "vehicle" to power, and one of those is the green movement. The world green movement is the vehicle now being tried by all the washed up old communists and socialists, along with the young idealogues coming out of the educational system nowadays that have bought into ultra-leftism.

So, even though the historical track record of leftists is strewn with death, starvation, and destruction, the beat goes on. And I strongly believe we must be vigilant and try to beat back the forces of evil. Evil is that which seeks to destroy freedom, liberty, and individual responsibility, and transfer that power to the almighty State, which requires dictatorships to gain and maintain, because humankind yearns at our core to be free.

Really when you cut to the chase, political philosophy has at its core a deeply religious foundational belief. One either believes in a their God to turn to, to solve their problems, or one will turn to the almighty State to become the arbitor of fairness and "social justice." Social justice is of course a buzzword of leftists, and when you hear that term, it is a red flag indeed. You will hear Obama use that term, because he is an ultra-leftist at his core. If you study his life, his philosophy, and his governing style, an honest person that must pretty much conclude what he is. And the troubling part is that no leftist is ever benign, almost all of them are very very dangerous people to have in power. I am not talking about mild socialists, but ultra-leftists. I am not sure how far left Obama really is, but I fear he is pretty far left. Hopefully he can gravitate to the right or at least not be given the opportunity to enact all of what he appears to want to accomplish.

Our best hope is the next election, to turn the tide back on the bunch in office now.