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Jeb Bush is a decent and honorable man, who was running in the shadow of his brother's legacy as President, which a lot of Americans in 2016 believe right or wrong, that GWB lit the fuse that blew up the Middle East, when he invaded Iraq in 2003. Add to that, Jeb did not seem to have his heart in this fight, and waited too long to fight Trump and his nastiness upfront and should have tried to knock out Trump in the first round. He also blew his money too soon with little to show for it.
The minute Trump started in on the low energy thing, Jeb should have put him in an MMA headlock and choked him out in the first round. Just not Jeb's style I guess. None of the other Republican candidates wanted to go Mano a Mano with the Donald either, and now he is on a roll. Marco Rubio seems to be the other "winner" tonight, beside the Donald. MArco says its a three man race now. I am not sure Kasich believes that.
The minute Trump started in on the low energy thing, Jeb should have put him in an MMA headlock and choked him out in the first round. Just not Jeb's style I guess. None of the other Republican candidates wanted to go Mano a Mano with the Donald either, and now he is on a roll. Marco Rubio seems to be the other "winner" tonight, beside the Donald. MArco says its a three man race now. I am not sure Kasich believes that.
Jeb Bush suspends his campaign
Posted from cnn.com
Republicans
Election 2016
Jeb Bush
Donald Trump
Marco Rubio
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 2
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Bush is a middle of the roader. He isn't a bad guy. He did a good job as governor of the state of Florida. He ran into a juggernaut that politicians are struggling to deal with. Trump, love him or hate him has resonated with those that have had enough of the establishment promising change if elected and then delivering none. The GOP has both the House and the Senate and have not delivered much since winning.
While I am not a big fan of Trump I understand why many are. He does not play by the rules of the political class. He hits hard, shoots straight and says what he wants without concern or fear. His worst case is if he loses he goes back to running his companies and life goes on. He has made it. The political class all need their next job. This is like a career path for them. Most of them have done relatively little outside of politics.
Bush was the Casper Milquetoast of the campaign. He was run over early as the low energy, entitled candidate with no new ideas, just another Bush. It stuck, partly because it is true, partly because it was delivered with such sting it could not be ignored.
Kasich is another life long politician. He loves to remind us of all of the years he has served in the government. I think he is viewed as just another retread establishment candidate, hence the low polling numbers and weak results. I am not saying he hasn't done well in some positions but he is viewed as an insider in the election of the outsider (or so it appears so far).
While I am not a big fan of Trump I understand why many are. He does not play by the rules of the political class. He hits hard, shoots straight and says what he wants without concern or fear. His worst case is if he loses he goes back to running his companies and life goes on. He has made it. The political class all need their next job. This is like a career path for them. Most of them have done relatively little outside of politics.
Bush was the Casper Milquetoast of the campaign. He was run over early as the low energy, entitled candidate with no new ideas, just another Bush. It stuck, partly because it is true, partly because it was delivered with such sting it could not be ignored.
Kasich is another life long politician. He loves to remind us of all of the years he has served in the government. I think he is viewed as just another retread establishment candidate, hence the low polling numbers and weak results. I am not saying he hasn't done well in some positions but he is viewed as an insider in the election of the outsider (or so it appears so far).
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Capt Lance Gallardo
Cpl Jeff N. It seems this the year we are looking for something off the Establishment Menu, when the Establishment, puts down the menu on the table in front of us, and says you can have choice Hillary or choice Bush, (or some other Republican Establishment "safe" pick), and people, left, right and center, Dems, Indys, and Repubs are choosing to stand up and walk out of that Restaurant.
This aint the year of business as usual . . .
At least that is what I see when I look at the anger and angst of my fellow Americans who maybe are vaguely aware that the game has always been rigged to a certain extent against the poor and the middle class, where the rich and now the mega-rich, have always ensured that the personal armies of private security, politicians that they owned (or at least rented-as I think Trump has said at some time), lawyers, doctors and doctor specialists, personal trainers and Dietitians/personal chefs, accountants, wealth advisers, and even Public Relations/crisis management firms (you never know when you'll need one of those when you are uber-rich, and you kill a girlfriend/lover/political staffer, like Ted Kennedy did in a drunk driving accident in Chappaquiddick, and did not call the police for hours later, or his Nephew Michael Skakel did when he murdered Martha Moxley in 1975 or When William Kennedy Smith was accused of rape tried (and acquitted) for rape in 1991) will be there to insulate them and protect them from the problems that the rest of Americans have, whether that be violent crime, an economic recession/depression, a criminal accusation, taxes, health problems, or whatever.
Really the only thing the rich fear is re-distributive tax rates, but they finally beat that fear by getting Americans of all economic classes (poor and middle class) to buy into the idea that taxes, any and all taxes, and any progressive tax rate is "bad" and that government is "the problem" not part of the solution in addressing many of America's pressing problems.
No matter that those taxes pay for our military, fund the space programs, pay for our bridges and roads and infrastructure, pay for a basic free education K-12 (a right that many of the Founders thought would elevate America above all nations and that literacy was a key requirement in a Republican Democracy), Free Public Libraries ( a strong backer was Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, whom many historians believe put himself in financial arrears with his purchase and creating hi private collection of books for his private library), and our many Anti-poverty programs some of which ensure that kids do not starve in America, a land of plenty.
No one likes to pay taxes, but it has long been an American idea that the better off you are, the higher your tax bracket and percentage of your wealth should be paid in the form of taxes, and the worst off you are the less you should pay as an absolute percentage of your income. We can argue about what the percentages should be for the very rich and the very poor (who often pay nothing and actually get tax credits). But buying into this basic principal of a progressive tax scheme, was something that until recently most Americans supported.
I could not bring myself to vote for Mitt Romney (I had already become disillusioned with Obama by 2012), because I could not stand the fact that Romney paid an effective tax rate of 14.1%, while most American Wage Workers (everyone I knew and had ever known) was paying an effective tax rate double that and more. You want to be uber rich and move all your wealth into capital gains (and or out of the US) so that you pay an effective tax rate of 14.1% fine, just don't ask me to vote for you to be President. "In 2011 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney paid an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent, up slightly from 13.9 percent in 2010. But is this rate high or low?
Compared with a lot of other Americans (including the famous 47 percent who pay no income tax), it's pretty high. But compared with other high-income individuals, it's fairly low. Depending on which peer group you think is more relevant, you can reach vastly different conclusions about whether Romney is paying his "fair share."
. . .
But Romney's rate isn't low just by comparison with our current president. It's also low compared with every president of the last 40 years.
Among presidents, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush would be President Romney's closest taxpaying peers, with average rates of 20.15 percent and 19.86 percent, respectively.
Those rates are a lot higher than Romney's, but other presidents have been higher still. George W. Bush, whose signature tax cuts still dominate fiscal debate in Washington, paid at a rate of 27.17 percent. His fellow tax cutter, Ronald Reagan, paid 32.37 percent.
The president with the highest rate? Gerald Ford, at 37.82 percent. Ouch
From: http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Articles/C44C6D5EEC7FA1AD85257A85003EAD9E?OpenDocument
See some hypocrisy here folks, when Bill and Hillary hobnobbing with all their rich Wall Street Buddies (and becoming "super rich" themselves with their book deals, obscene speaking fees, and cashing in on their celebrity and connections they made while in the White House), and Hillary is now on the campaign trail talking her BS Progressive line about "I am one of you." Bill And Hillary Clinton Earned Over 160 Millions of dollars from 2000 to 2012 "Million After Leaving The White House, from a 2014 article": http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-and-hillary-clinton-earned-over-160-million-2014-7
"Combining Clinton's salary at the State Department, her family's total income from her 2001 through 2007 tax returns, and the speaking fees they collected from 2008 until 2012, the Clintons earned a total of about $163 million during the first 12 years after Bill Clinton left the White House. This figure is just a minimum as it only includes the speaking fees the Clintons earned from 2008 to 2012 and does not reflect other sources of income including property, investments, and book royalties.
Clinton has presumably done quite well since 2012, the last year covered by her public disclosures. She is commanding a reported $200,000 in speaking fees on her media tour for "Hard Choices" and reportedly earned an advance of "significantly more" than $8 million for the book."
To me that is like Marie Antoinette hitting the streets of Paris just before the French Revolution and trying to tell the starving French Peasants, "I am one of you." From the above cited article.
I have no problem admitting that I would like to be as rich as the Clintons and every man has a price supposedly, but my honor is not for sale if that is what the price is to be as rich as the Clintons. They sold out a long time ago to the God of Green Money, yet they try to convince (and apparently with some success) that they are still the "progressives" lefties they might have been in the sixties and seventies, but the 2000s saw them accumulate more wealth than most Americans (and former Presidents and their spouses) have ever done, once Bill left office. Most of the money coming from Bill Clinton's speaking fees.
I am actually far more comfortable with Donald Trump who has no problem being rich or coming from wealth, and admitting publicly that as a business man he has "bought his friends, and rented some politicians from time to time."
That doesn't mean I am going to vote for him. But I don't see the sheer hypocrisy and Chutzpah that the Clinton's exude from every pore and orifice in their bodies when it comes to their promises to reign in the excesses of their Wall Street buddies and that they "are with the middle classes and the poor of this country." That dog stopped hunting long ago.
2015 What is the highest tax rate in the US?
In 2015, the income limits for all brackets and all filers will be adjusted for inflation and will be as seen in Table 1. The top marginal income tax rate of 39.6 percent will hit taxpayers with taxable income of $413,200 and higher for single filers and $464,850 and higher for married filers.
In 1944-45, “the most progressive tax years in U.S. history,” the 94% rate applied to any income above $200,000 ($2.4 million in 2009 dollars, given inflation). In World War Two, tax law revisions increased the numbers of “those paying some income taxes” from 7% of the U.S. population (1940) to 64% by 1944.
What was the highest income tax rate in 1960?
The top marginal tax rate in 1960 was 91%, which applied to income over $200,000 (for single filers) or $400,000 (for married filers) - thresholds which correspond to approximately $1.5 million and $3 million, respectively, in today's dollars. Approximately 0.00235% of households had income taxed at the top rate.
Cpl Jeff N. Sgt Gus Laskaris CPT L S CPT (Join to see) https://www.rallypoint.com/profiles/478331-capt-walter-miller
This aint the year of business as usual . . .
At least that is what I see when I look at the anger and angst of my fellow Americans who maybe are vaguely aware that the game has always been rigged to a certain extent against the poor and the middle class, where the rich and now the mega-rich, have always ensured that the personal armies of private security, politicians that they owned (or at least rented-as I think Trump has said at some time), lawyers, doctors and doctor specialists, personal trainers and Dietitians/personal chefs, accountants, wealth advisers, and even Public Relations/crisis management firms (you never know when you'll need one of those when you are uber-rich, and you kill a girlfriend/lover/political staffer, like Ted Kennedy did in a drunk driving accident in Chappaquiddick, and did not call the police for hours later, or his Nephew Michael Skakel did when he murdered Martha Moxley in 1975 or When William Kennedy Smith was accused of rape tried (and acquitted) for rape in 1991) will be there to insulate them and protect them from the problems that the rest of Americans have, whether that be violent crime, an economic recession/depression, a criminal accusation, taxes, health problems, or whatever.
Really the only thing the rich fear is re-distributive tax rates, but they finally beat that fear by getting Americans of all economic classes (poor and middle class) to buy into the idea that taxes, any and all taxes, and any progressive tax rate is "bad" and that government is "the problem" not part of the solution in addressing many of America's pressing problems.
No matter that those taxes pay for our military, fund the space programs, pay for our bridges and roads and infrastructure, pay for a basic free education K-12 (a right that many of the Founders thought would elevate America above all nations and that literacy was a key requirement in a Republican Democracy), Free Public Libraries ( a strong backer was Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, whom many historians believe put himself in financial arrears with his purchase and creating hi private collection of books for his private library), and our many Anti-poverty programs some of which ensure that kids do not starve in America, a land of plenty.
No one likes to pay taxes, but it has long been an American idea that the better off you are, the higher your tax bracket and percentage of your wealth should be paid in the form of taxes, and the worst off you are the less you should pay as an absolute percentage of your income. We can argue about what the percentages should be for the very rich and the very poor (who often pay nothing and actually get tax credits). But buying into this basic principal of a progressive tax scheme, was something that until recently most Americans supported.
I could not bring myself to vote for Mitt Romney (I had already become disillusioned with Obama by 2012), because I could not stand the fact that Romney paid an effective tax rate of 14.1%, while most American Wage Workers (everyone I knew and had ever known) was paying an effective tax rate double that and more. You want to be uber rich and move all your wealth into capital gains (and or out of the US) so that you pay an effective tax rate of 14.1% fine, just don't ask me to vote for you to be President. "In 2011 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney paid an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent, up slightly from 13.9 percent in 2010. But is this rate high or low?
Compared with a lot of other Americans (including the famous 47 percent who pay no income tax), it's pretty high. But compared with other high-income individuals, it's fairly low. Depending on which peer group you think is more relevant, you can reach vastly different conclusions about whether Romney is paying his "fair share."
. . .
But Romney's rate isn't low just by comparison with our current president. It's also low compared with every president of the last 40 years.
Among presidents, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush would be President Romney's closest taxpaying peers, with average rates of 20.15 percent and 19.86 percent, respectively.
Those rates are a lot higher than Romney's, but other presidents have been higher still. George W. Bush, whose signature tax cuts still dominate fiscal debate in Washington, paid at a rate of 27.17 percent. His fellow tax cutter, Ronald Reagan, paid 32.37 percent.
The president with the highest rate? Gerald Ford, at 37.82 percent. Ouch
From: http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Articles/C44C6D5EEC7FA1AD85257A85003EAD9E?OpenDocument
See some hypocrisy here folks, when Bill and Hillary hobnobbing with all their rich Wall Street Buddies (and becoming "super rich" themselves with their book deals, obscene speaking fees, and cashing in on their celebrity and connections they made while in the White House), and Hillary is now on the campaign trail talking her BS Progressive line about "I am one of you." Bill And Hillary Clinton Earned Over 160 Millions of dollars from 2000 to 2012 "Million After Leaving The White House, from a 2014 article": http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-and-hillary-clinton-earned-over-160-million-2014-7
"Combining Clinton's salary at the State Department, her family's total income from her 2001 through 2007 tax returns, and the speaking fees they collected from 2008 until 2012, the Clintons earned a total of about $163 million during the first 12 years after Bill Clinton left the White House. This figure is just a minimum as it only includes the speaking fees the Clintons earned from 2008 to 2012 and does not reflect other sources of income including property, investments, and book royalties.
Clinton has presumably done quite well since 2012, the last year covered by her public disclosures. She is commanding a reported $200,000 in speaking fees on her media tour for "Hard Choices" and reportedly earned an advance of "significantly more" than $8 million for the book."
To me that is like Marie Antoinette hitting the streets of Paris just before the French Revolution and trying to tell the starving French Peasants, "I am one of you." From the above cited article.
I have no problem admitting that I would like to be as rich as the Clintons and every man has a price supposedly, but my honor is not for sale if that is what the price is to be as rich as the Clintons. They sold out a long time ago to the God of Green Money, yet they try to convince (and apparently with some success) that they are still the "progressives" lefties they might have been in the sixties and seventies, but the 2000s saw them accumulate more wealth than most Americans (and former Presidents and their spouses) have ever done, once Bill left office. Most of the money coming from Bill Clinton's speaking fees.
I am actually far more comfortable with Donald Trump who has no problem being rich or coming from wealth, and admitting publicly that as a business man he has "bought his friends, and rented some politicians from time to time."
That doesn't mean I am going to vote for him. But I don't see the sheer hypocrisy and Chutzpah that the Clinton's exude from every pore and orifice in their bodies when it comes to their promises to reign in the excesses of their Wall Street buddies and that they "are with the middle classes and the poor of this country." That dog stopped hunting long ago.
2015 What is the highest tax rate in the US?
In 2015, the income limits for all brackets and all filers will be adjusted for inflation and will be as seen in Table 1. The top marginal income tax rate of 39.6 percent will hit taxpayers with taxable income of $413,200 and higher for single filers and $464,850 and higher for married filers.
In 1944-45, “the most progressive tax years in U.S. history,” the 94% rate applied to any income above $200,000 ($2.4 million in 2009 dollars, given inflation). In World War Two, tax law revisions increased the numbers of “those paying some income taxes” from 7% of the U.S. population (1940) to 64% by 1944.
What was the highest income tax rate in 1960?
The top marginal tax rate in 1960 was 91%, which applied to income over $200,000 (for single filers) or $400,000 (for married filers) - thresholds which correspond to approximately $1.5 million and $3 million, respectively, in today's dollars. Approximately 0.00235% of households had income taxed at the top rate.
Cpl Jeff N. Sgt Gus Laskaris CPT L S CPT (Join to see) https://www.rallypoint.com/profiles/478331-capt-walter-miller
Tax Analysts -- Romney's Tax Rate Lower Than Any President's Since Nixon
In news analysis, Joseph J. Thorndike compares the average effective tax rate paid by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney with that paid by other recent presidents while they were in office.
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Cpl Jeff N.
I agree the powerful and well connected have protection and access to people the average American's do not. It is also true that many that go into politics end up incredibly wealthy. The Clintons are a good example of this axiom.
I am not in favor of higher taxes on successful people either. I think there can be graduated rates but the rates in the 90% range are confiscatory by definition. We need to encourage people to succeed and become wealthy. It should not be punished.
I have heard the rants about Romney and his income tax rate. I think it has been proven that most of his income did not come from wages but lower taxed investment instruments, hence his lower than usual rate.
It seems more Americans than ever are looking off the main menu at something else whether it is the democrats with Bernie or the GOP with Trump or Cruz. None of these three are on the main menu for sure.
I am not in favor of higher taxes on successful people either. I think there can be graduated rates but the rates in the 90% range are confiscatory by definition. We need to encourage people to succeed and become wealthy. It should not be punished.
I have heard the rants about Romney and his income tax rate. I think it has been proven that most of his income did not come from wages but lower taxed investment instruments, hence his lower than usual rate.
It seems more Americans than ever are looking off the main menu at something else whether it is the democrats with Bernie or the GOP with Trump or Cruz. None of these three are on the main menu for sure.
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I so want Gov. Kasich to gain some traction. He's the only one on the Repub side that makes sense and isn't arrogantly stupid.
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SSG Warren Swan
SGT Sean Wike - You know no one knows you when you don't have any memes on FB. He's at that point.
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PO2 Peter Klein
Kasich is the only viable Republican running. With all the bankruptcies in his past and his foreign wives I am afraid what trump will do to the country; I think Cruz wants to be pope of the country; Rubio is still a little boy; Carson has no experience.
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SSG Warren Swan
PO2 Peter Klein - I seriously believe Kasich IS the best option for the GOP going forward. I'm not going to vote this time but if it came down to it, I'd support him or Biden. They're the only ones.
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