Call the Whaaabulance!

[n2doc]

Mr. President, You Can Squeeze a Lemon Only So Much

I am finally angry. After hearing our president speak again about holding or reducing taxes for those who earn less than $250,000 and raising taxes for those who earn more ("Tax Cuts Dividing Democrats," U.S. News, Sept. 9), I realized that he is treating my wife and me exactly as he treats Wall Street or the oil companies. He is vilifying us for his own personal gain.

My family isn't wealthy. I have no funded retirement plan save Social Security, if it is there when I need it. I have no guarantee of permanent health care. I am paying off school loans for our three children. A meaningful number of my friends have lost their jobs, and all who are still employed, including my family, have taken significant pay reductions. My brother-in-law has been told to take every Friday off with a 20% cut in pay, but his work load hasn't changed. Everyone I describe here earned over $250,000 per year. This is a classless recession, at least in my experience. It is hitting everyone.

Yet those of us who make $250,000 or more are vilified and held accountable for solving our government's penchant for spending more than it takes in so that politicians can buy votes. We already pay more in taxes than 98% of the population, particularly the nearly 50% of eligible voters who pay no federal income tax. The president wants us to pay more, and he frames it in a way that casts us as not yet carrying our fair share of the burden.

Apparently our president thinks that living in America is so wonderful that we will never leave, despite being directly attacked and held responsible for the political class's inability to constrain its desire to buy votes with our money. He should think again.

Glen Esnard

Newport Beach, Calif.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704644404575482112096939190.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

Glen Esnard is a Newport Beach executive for real estate services firm Grubb & Ellis

also see follow up

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2010/09/obama-bush-tax-cuts-high-income-earners-wealthy.html

[blondeatlast]

1. Dear Mr. Real Estate Executive: Suck it up.

Thank you,
The United States of America

[JuniperLea]

2. Gucci bags are freaking expensive!

His wife and mistress will have to settle for Coach! Waaaaaaa!

Newport Beach... pft... you can't live there without being ridiculously rich... unless you're working for someone ridiculously rich.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

8. Best sig line ever! It needs its own thread

[JuniperLea]

25. You should catch "Fridays with Fugelsang"

On the Stephanie Miller Show... John Fugelsang is amazing... so freaking smart! If you like this sigline, you'll dig his whole deal.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

31. O.K if you won't do it, do you mind if I do?

I will be happy to give you the props.

[Radical Activist]

3. fail

[bluestateguy]

4. The president made a campaign promise 2 years ago, and now he is keeping it.

And so the writer has no right to complain.

[Turbineguy]

5. The James D. Allen Postulate:

"If you have to pay taxes, you're in good shape. Pay 'em!"

[blondeatlast]

6. Good one! nt

[wtmusic]

7. He makes $250K and has no retirement plan?

What an idiot. Why would I want to bail him out?

[safeinOhio]

He makes a lot more than that.

The tax increase in on net, not gross income and is only on that part that is over $250K net.

[wtmusic]

9. I love it when they threaten to leave

It's soooo cute. :rofl:

[bluestateguy]

23. Yep, he can try living in one of those European nations that really are socialist

or some third world nation where yes, taxes are low on the wealthy, but there is also high crime, corruption beyond anything one can imagine in America and an unsafe public infrastructure.

[Xipe Totec]

10. Would you like another tax cut Mr. Creosote? Its only waffer thin...

[flamingdem]

13. yow! nt

[Juneboarder]

11. What an idiot...

I'd like to brag about making 1/2 that $250,000 limit. If you make more than $250,000, then count your lucky freakin' stars right now.

[sarge43]

20. I can't imagine what it would be like to make 50K a year.

Have some Velveeta with that whine, Glen. It's the cheap stuff.

[RagAss]

12. What a Slapdick !

[blondeatlast]

14. Let me show you the door, then, deadbeat. nt

[Quantess]

15. He's in real estate, which means he's already taking in less income than say 4 years ago.

I'm not agreeing with the whiny sad sack, but I imagine he is bitter that the real estate bubble has burst.

[sarge43]

19. Does he still have a roof over his head?

Yes? Remind me to weep.

[Quantess]

21. Oh, absolutely, he's a big baby. I'm just trying to see his point of view.

Remember back in the 1990s up to the mid-2000s when the real estate market kept rising and rising? A few people were aware that it was only a bubble, but most of us were told that the real estate market was hot and would only get hotter until infinity. Real estate seemed to be such a sweet deal, and many people made their fortunes (or at least a good chunk of income) from it.

I'm going to a little sympathetic, and say that he is still in a stage of grief. Most likely the anger stage. A lot of people are just now overcoming the denial phase of their real estate losses.

This whiny guy is going to have to learn to adjust to a lower income, which is hard for people to do, once they are used to a certain lifestyle. He is not our enemy. He's kind of in a similar bind as the rest of us, although relatively doing better, of course.

Look a little farther up the income scale,and you will find people who have actually increased their wealth since the recession started. Those are the ones who really deserve to pay, yet who ironically, are getting away with everything.

[sarge43]

24. You're a better woman than I am, Quantess

I can't work up any sympathy. Most of the rest of us didn't try to game the system. He gambled and lost, but apparently he didn't lose everything. Many have.

[Quantess]

26. Some people need to get used to a more realistic lifestyle.

Real Estate investment had nothing to do with "gaming the system" for most people. I know people who made their fortunes, from nothing, based on real estate. I personally know people who got rich on the real estate bubble. They are in a compromised position, now. I have sympathy for everyone who benefited from the Real Estate bubble and then lost.

[abelenkpe]

16. This is the face of the tea party

They are in the top 1%, used to having it all and angry that they are expected to contribute even the smallest amount more to keep the society that has cradled them their entire life from collapsing. I'll buy this a-hole a one way ticket out of this country if it really is too much for him.

He hasn't been paying his fair share for over ten years! The average income in the US is 50,000 a year. Spend a year living on that salary and come back and tell me you don't want the government to tax the top 1% or keep social programs going. I dare Glen Esnard to do that!

[Art_from_Ark]

27. Tijuana would be the closest foreign destination

And a one-way bus ticket would be pretty cheap :bounce:

[Starbucks Anarchist]

29. No, they're the ones the teabaggers inadvertently help.

They just don't realize they're doing it.

[gratuitous]

17. Why is he paying off school loans for his three children?

Don't those lazy sons and daughters of privilege have the personal responsibility to pay back their own school loans? But yeah, Mr. Esnard; why don't you go somewhere where they won't take an extra 3 cents for every dollar you make over a quarter million a year? I hear that Somalia has very warm weather suitable to a cold-blooded jerk such as yourself. I don't know how the commercial real estate biz is there, but a manly captain of industry such as yourself can undoubtedly navigate any waters, right?

[surrealAmerican]

18. So he would rather see the people who are too poor ...

... to even owe taxes pay for his society? He really is a lemon-head.

[JoePhilly]

22. What a DOUCHE BAG ...

And a phony.

If he makes right around 250k, then he is NOT paying much more in taxes than anyone else ... the increase is only for the income ABOVE 250k. And if you make over that, its still not much of an increase.

And ... as one who (with my wife) makes more than 250k ... the issue is not income, but WEALTH.

I am not "wealthy" ... my wife was not "wealthy" ... and we have no guaranteed health care. But I would like everyone to have it.

This douche bag suggests he might leave the US ... GO you DOUCHE BAG!!!

I am curious where the jerk will go? Europe?

[hfojvt]

28. Clearly he thinks that deadbeat 47% should pay more taxes

What about the 47%?

Some in the media are trying to make a big deal out of the fact that 47% of Americans do not pay Federal Income Taxes. This is not new. In November of 2002, the Wall Street Journal wrote about the "Lucky Duckies" who were too poor to pay income taxes.

The fact is, that most years, I have been one of them, but I would love to pay income taxes instead of not pay them. Why? Because that would mean I was making more money. The tax rate is not 100%. If I paid $500 in income taxes that would mean I had an extra $5,000 in income that I do not have now. Even after FICA taxes that would leave me over $4,000 ahead.

Let's look at the larger picture though. In 1996, there were 13.2 million taxpayers with income over $10,000 and less than $15,000 and there were another 11.6 million with income less than $20,000 and another 28.5 million with income less than $10,000. Discounting the last group, which is probably mostly teenagers, those making under $20,000 paid $16.9 billion in taxes. Let's assume that the Bush tax cuts eliminated taxes for that group (which they didn't, but for the sake of argument). Those 24.8 million people (or families) would thus save an average of just $681.

Now, look at what actually happened with another group. What Bush called his base - "the haves and the have mores". In 1996, the top 1% paid an average tax rate of 28.9%. By 2006, they only paid an average of 22.79%. In 2006, their total income was $1.79 Trillion! Thus, they saved $109 billion thanks to the Bush tax cuts, an average savings of $80,313.

So, to compare, that's $16.9 billion saved by the poorer people and $109 billion saved by the richer people, and there are 24.8 million of the poor families compared to 1.36 million of the richer families.

Should we be upset because poorer families got $16.9 billion in tax cuts? Or should we be more concerned about the $109 billion going to people with incomes over $388,000? Who is luckier, somebody making $15,000 who got a tax cut of $681 or somebody making $38,000,000 who got a tax cut of over $2,300,000? Hey, doesn't Rush Limbaugh make $38 million a year?

[6000eliot]

30. Since when is paying your fair share a punishment?

[blueworld]

32. Wish I could afford Kleenex to wipe away the tears

Most of the unemployed or underemployed folks I know didn't START at $250K, let alone end up there after great business deductions. Of course he hasn't a "funded" pension plan yet, if he means a Defined Contribution plan. Bet he has a 401K, though. And his three kids are in college, not Iraq or Afghanistan.

If he thinks the tax structure here is a direct attack on him, why doesn't he give all his money to charity & try living near a dumpster?

[peekaloo]

33. Ewww this squeezed lemon tastes like sour grapes!

Freedom isn't free. Fuckface.

[mainer]

34. Finland: 30%?

That was the big surprise I found at the link they listed in the LA Times article: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.TAX.IMAR.ZS/countries/latest?display=default

And for that, the Finns get their healthcare covered.

Canada is 29% (with Provincial taxes it adds up to 50%) but again, they get their healthcare covered.

Bahamas 0%? What's with that?