Final-Fan said: Nope, hadn't heard. My news exposure is ... irregular. Now that I've enlightened myself, I want to make sure we're on the same page: it would cap the percentage of the money saved on the deductions (at $280 per $1000 as opposed to currently up to $350 per $1000), not a cap like "no donations past $1 million are deductible" as I had presumed based on what you said. I'm not sure if you thought it was something else, or just wrote it wrong, or possibly you'll be able to convince me that I misinterpreted you. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123621392108135233.html And I seriously, seriously doubt this was proposed with the GOAL of taking money away from charities, which seems to be what you are saying. That would only be a probable side effect, admittedly a side effect that I think the administration should not risk. (And I think I'd oppose this even if it wouldn't affect giving, on principle.)

While it suggests 4 Billion.   Obama's figures suggest higher if you'll notice how much he thinks it will gain him.

That's exactly the goal though to take from charities.

 

It's win win.

Either people donate the same and we get more money from them.  Or people donate less and we get a lot more money from them. 

The secodnary thing seems to be the case due to how much more he plans to get from this plan.

 

@ HappySqurriel

Yes, but they are social as well. That was my point, being social isn't a negative trade at all.



The US performs miserably using any metric. CO2 output is just one of the very major problems we are facing.



Mainly to China, but China performs considerably better than the US. US companies outsource a lot to China or India.



Royal Dutch Philips would be punished in the Netherlands if they massively misbehaved in other countries.

Many Philips, Sony and Grundig TVs are being produced in the EU.



Depends on the amount of forests which remain in Asia, South America and Africa. It does not require a rocket scientist to understand that a disbalance between the two (which is currently the case) will have global effects.

BTFeather55 said: HappySqurriel said: MikeB said: @ HappySqurriel Except for the fact that capatalist democracies tend to have a much better environmental record than any other governmental system ... That's not true, the US per capita is one of the most poluting countries in the world (maybe some small country like Australia was able to beat them per capita). In absolute figures the US is the most poluting country in the world by far, even beating China with about 5 times as many people. IMO the best performing countries, show rather a combination of democratic, capatalist and social trades, like many European countries. You can have a country which advocates being competitive, social and is democratic. For example Switzerland and Sweden generate about 3 to 4 times the wealth the US does per tonne of CO2 emitted. The EU while representing hundreds of millions more people generates less than half the pollution the USA generates. But the EU could perform much better as well, if not for the US allowing US companies to pollute so much (which is cheaper and thus provides a competitive advantage).   So European countries aren't capatalist democracies? Now, a few things first ... Per Capita CO2 output is an awful metric because it doesn't take into conderation the vast differences that can exist in terms of per-capita productivity; in terms of GDP to Carbon Dioxide the awful United States produces about 5 times as much wealth per ton of CO2 than China, Russia, and India ... and very few Countries produce more than double the wealth per ton of CO2 that the US does ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_GDP_to_carbon_dioxide_emissions ) On top of that, measuring CO2 based on countries borders is remarkably dishonest ... A large portion of the reason why countries are able to massively reduce their CO2 output is by off-shoring their heavy manufacturing to another country. People in Europe are still buying TVs even though they are now being produced in China under few/no environmental regulations. Thirdly, many of the best GDP to CO2 countires around the world are facing a more massive financial crisis in a large part because of how artificially inflated their economy was due to poor banking practices ... The ratios that the EU currently have will tumble dramatically while I bet that Canada's ratios will remaing remarkably stable. Finally, CO2 is not a polutant ... No one has proven the Global Warming theory, and popularity doesn't make a theory true ... For over 10,000 years Antartica has been covered in ice.  It wasn't until the late 20th century when all these pollutants began to be pumped into the air and the o-zone began to grow that Antartica's glaciers started to melt.

Yeah... that happens a lot.  It's called global weather patterns.  Though it's a bit off topic... it's funny how wrong you are and how much you keep resorting to bs parisian speaking points after each point you make is routinely proven wrong via actual facts.

 

global climate patterns.

Kasz216 said: Final-Fan said: Nope, hadn't heard. My news exposure is ... irregular. Now that I've enlightened myself, I want to make sure we're on the same page: it would cap the percentage of the money saved on the deductions (at $280 per $1000 as opposed to currently up to $350 per $1000), not a cap like "no donations past $1 million are deductible" as I had presumed based on what you said. I'm not sure if you thought it was something else, or just wrote it wrong, or possibly you'll be able to convince me that I misinterpreted you. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123621392108135233.html And I seriously, seriously doubt this was proposed with the GOAL of taking money away from charities, which seems to be what you are saying. That would only be a probable side effect, admittedly a side effect that I think the administration should not risk. (And I think I'd oppose this even if it wouldn't affect giving, on principle.) While it suggests 4 Billion.   Obama's figures suggest higher if you'll notice how much he thinks it will gain him. That's exactly the goal though to take from charities. It's win win. Either people donate the same and we get more money from them.  Or people donate less and we get a lot more money from them.  The secodnary thing seems to be the case due to how much more he plans to get from this plan.

No, the revenue from reducing tax breaks doesn't DIRECTLY take ANYTHING at all from the charities, so your "but Obama expects more revenue difference than that" fails as well as the "exactly the goal" unless you find a smoking gun.  All you have presented right now is conspiracy theory. 

What is your evidence that his expected revenue is based on people giving sgnificantly less to charity? 

Final-Fan said: Kasz216 said: Final-Fan said: Nope, hadn't heard. My news exposure is ... irregular. Now that I've enlightened myself, I want to make sure we're on the same page: it would cap the percentage of the money saved on the deductions (at $280 per $1000 as opposed to currently up to $350 per $1000), not a cap like "no donations past $1 million are deductible" as I had presumed based on what you said. I'm not sure if you thought it was something else, or just wrote it wrong, or possibly you'll be able to convince me that I misinterpreted you. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123621392108135233.html And I seriously, seriously doubt this was proposed with the GOAL of taking money away from charities, which seems to be what you are saying. That would only be a probable side effect, admittedly a side effect that I think the administration should not risk. (And I think I'd oppose this even if it wouldn't affect giving, on principle.) While it suggests 4 Billion.   Obama's figures suggest higher if you'll notice how much he thinks it will gain him. That's exactly the goal though to take from charities. It's win win. Either people donate the same and we get more money from them.  Or people donate less and we get a lot more money from them.  The secodnary thing seems to be the case due to how much more he plans to get from this plan. No, the revenue from reducing tax breaks doesn't DIRECTLY take ANYTHING at all from the charities, so your "but Obama expects more revenue difference than that" fails as well as the "exactly the goal" unless you find a smoking gun.  All you have presented right now is conspiracy theory.  What is your evidence that his expected revenue is based on people giving sgnificantly less to charity?

By the same way you could argue that by stopping water from reaching thirsty people you aren't directly making them die of thirst.

This proposal will hurt charties and is penalizing people for their charitable contributions.

How can you be all right with that?

It's all in the numbers.  He expects it to produce at least 180 billion dollars.

Why the hell should people have to pay any taxes on money they donate to charity anyway?  They donated it to charity.

 

People complain when the government runs a deficit, but then people also complain when they do something to fix it. Whatever the government does to fix the problem, someone is going to complain.

I don't necessarily think reducing the deduction on charitable donations is great, but we have to face the fact that we are dead broke as a country. If you regularly complain about the government running deficits, you have no room to complain.

akuma587 said: People complain when the government runs a deficit, but then people also complain when they do something to fix it. Whatever the government does to fix the problem, someone is going to complain. I don't necessarily think reducing the deduction on charitable donations is great, but we have to face the fact that we are dead broke as a country. If you regularly complain about the government running deficits, you have no room to complain.

Uh.  Yes I do.  Because by cutting donations to charity orginizations you are cutting the amount of work they are doing... meaning the government has to pick up more or the poor get hurt.

Now if the government has to pick up more... the government is less effective then private charties... this has been shown time and time again.  Hell that's why the government gives money to private charties.

So in otherwords.  Either the poor get hurt or we're spending more to do the same things were were doing before.

In otherwords the deficit gets bigger... or the poor get hurt.

You know... this is besdie the fact that this whole plan is basically "Lets take more money from nice people."

I mean seriously?

I thought democrats were mad at the people who didn't want to help the poor.  Not people who did?  Why not a tax increase combined with an increase in deductions that could be made from charity if that's the stance?

 

 

I would be all for a tax increase rather than this. The problem is that the American public has been trained to shun any kind of a tax hike, whether or not the country actually needs it, or even in spite of the fact that raising taxes can actually HELP the economy by preventing huge bubbles like the one we just experienced. Imposing a tax on the particular kind of securitization that was going on would have made this problem much less bad than it is right now.

You are preaching to the converted here. I would prefer if we could just hike taxes and be done with it. But that is unfortunately a politically unacceptable move.

akuma587 said: I would be all for a tax increase rather than this. The problem is that the American public has been trained to shun any kind of a tax hike, whether or not the country actually needs it, or even in spite of the fact that raising taxes can actually HELP the economy by preventing huge bubbles like the one we just experienced. Imposing a tax on the particular kind of securitization that was going on would have made this problem much less bad than it is right now. You are preaching to the converted here. I would prefer if we could just hike taxes and be done with it. But that is unfortunately a politically unacceptable move.

I think you'll find people less accepting of stealing from charity.

Even democrats hate this plan.