As of 2007 These were the tax rates.

 United States Tax Distribution - Tax Law | Tax Law Blog | IRS Tax Attorneys

I saw the skit on TV and I couldn’t stop laughing.  When I was growing up at the ranch we had a cook, she is in her 80’s now and when I call her I find out she watches Beck and it gets her scared because she believes most of it.  

I don’t like to watch him.  All the melodrama is over the top for me and I think it is manipulative, but every so often I tune in to see what he is up to, I don’t last long, but he does bring up issues that no one else is talking about, and then about a month later the scandal will break and he had the news first.  He is just too wacky melodramatic and manipulative for my taste. 

Liz

As a small business owner to have more taxes loaded on top of us is only going to help shrink this ship.  It almost sunk us in the 90’s when Clinton took away many deductions (which is a tax) and our income did not move much.  It was difficult.  We have more employees now and work comp in CA just raised our premium (although we have never had a claim against us) because they don’t want to have to fire anyone else.  They are part of SEIU - I guess that is Andy Stern, who makes $726,000 per year- who visited the WH 22 times.  Now I am all for them having their jobs, but if unemployment goes down so do their revenues, so they need to make adjustments too.  I didn’t do it and it isn’t my fault, so why am I being taxed? Hell, the SEIU collects $550 Million from their California members per month.  

As this article illustrates, they have tremendous sway in the WH.  I am sure they have incredible power in CA because we have been hearing for so long how deals were made by this union with CA legislators - that are sinking our state in pension costs.

 White House insider calls SEIU in California ‘budget terrorists’

When I got my notice from Work Comp, I called their office and said I want to make an appointment for someone to come out and sit down with me and help me decide which employee I will have to fire.  They have to choose who loses their job, because eventually, that is what will happen.  I will then have to pay unemployment benefits for the employee.  BOHICA

Helen

What about Clinton and Gore passing NAFTA?  Lots of jobs left because of that and it was supposed to help create jobs in Mexico so there would be less illegal immigration.  Those Mexican citizens were supposed to have a better chance for productive jobs in their country, but since then, illegal immigration has skyrocketed.  Clinton took a lot of money from foreign lobbyists to make those deals.  

I have no love for either party, I am an Independent.  My contention has always been that until the way business is done in Washington there will be not real change.  President Obama had a wonderful chance at the beginning of the year to get something done that would really change America - reform and regulate the lobbyists.  NO MONEY FOR ANYTHING should be able to go from a special interest/lobby to a house representative, senator, cabinet member, any member of government and on and on.  Laws that they can meet with them, discuss industry issues, etc, but NO MONEY for lunches, trips, seats on private planes, fund raiser dinners, and on and on and etc.  WE the people would have backed him and cheered him on and changed the laws so he could go 3 terms (well maybe), because that would have been change we could believe in.  It would have been such a game changer and really changed the scope of what could get done.  He would have had a great win under his belt.  Or, if he had concentrated on propagating a better business environment with tax incentives to create new industry instead of more taxes, then he would have had such a great win - healthcare could have followed easily and maybe wouldn’t have gotten into such a fight and maybe all those involved could have worked together more.    I wonder what congress’ approval rating will be now?

As it stands, after Bush growing government so much, so many posts above this complain about it, now you want the Obama Administration to do the same thing?  To me it’s like hearing "the republicans got to make as many mistakes as they wanted, and take all that money and do what they wanted while growing government, now it our turn to make as many mistakes as we want and we don’t care who has to pay for it, just like the republicans didn’t care….fair is fair -  so back off because you are stupid since you are republicans, we are far smarter since we are democrats and we can do it better, we will grow government even bigger!!!!!! 

Sherrie

The republicans got control of congress in ‘93 and lost it in ‘06.  During the Bush years the repubs only had a one or two seat advantage for some long stretches.  The dems held the WH for 7 of those years so it has been a mixed bag.  So instead of 25 years, I think you are really only talking about 12 in the last 25 and the repubs didn’t even have a great advantage.

Helen,

Most lobbying firms have made less since the economic crisis except those working with the Obama Administration.  A while back Politico.com reported that those firms revenues increased by millions.   Anywhere from 15% - 30% more than other firms.  So who is getting money from lobbyists?  It was a striking difference as compared to those that  do not work for the administration.  

The president also made a deal with Big Pharma to pay for 90million in advertising to sell the bill to the public.  For that the bill stipulates that Americans will then be prohibited from buying cheaper drugs from Canada.  They also got a 10 year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs.  THey helped write this bill.  

He also made a deal with the AMA (which angered a majority of doctors) that the medicare cuts to doctors that are supposed to happen every year, would be rolled over this year, not repealed, but rolled over (sooner or later they will have to make the cuts - it will probably happen after the midterm elections) but it was a kind of "back the deal, or we will cut the doctor reimbursements" - very Chicago politics.

The AARP endorsed it because they have now become the arm of an insurer.  They used to insure seniors with high cost Medi-gap until the Bush Administration got Medicare advantage passed that let seniors continue with their own doctors and got them extended care until the end of their lives - Medi-gap did not do that (you had to use their doctors) and it was more expensive.  So AARP went for the and sold us out in order to get back their Medi-gap business since Obama is eliminating Medicare Advantage.  I am going to cancel my membership with AARP.  Too much dirty and greedy politics. 

There is no torte reform in the bill - in fact there is Section 2531 entitled:

"Medical Liability Alternatives"  establishes and incentive program for states to adopt and implement alternatives to medical liability litigation.  (But)……a state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys’ fees or imposes caps and damages."

The democrats are the favorite home of millions of dollars the lawyers spend on lobbying.  

The only people that weren’t at the table were "we the people".  They did not listen to any of the legitimate protests in the last 6 months.  The compromised very little and the things that the republicans wanted in have been removed by Reid and his staff.  

As an Independent, the democrats are a huge disappointment.   I am sure there are many important things in the bill, but who can any of it anymore.  Who knows what deals are still in the making.  It is mind boggling.  This is not change, this is business as usual for a party to get what it wants.

I don’t know what would classify as "adult", but at 23 I went with my mother to her jewelers down on Fairfax near the Farmers Market.  Sam Fisher was his name and he sold estate jewelry.  Well, my mother had a great "appetite" for jewelry - (thanks mom for what you left me) and I found myself running a very close second in enthusiasm.  He had two beautiful rings that I just had to have and since Sam was very fond of my mother, because she helped his wife quite a bit when his wife was ill, so we got great discounts and I came away with my rings very pleased with myself.  I looked on it as an investment.  I have never sold them but I eventually started a vintage jewelry business and even though I don’t have time for it, I continue to make money at it.  Less now, but it still produces.

Sam had a fascinating "slide" bracelet  where all of the charmed slides had beautiful intaglios carved into stones - carnelian, amethyst, turquoise, malachite - I wish I would have bought that, but I was worried to spend more, so regretfully left without it.

But to this day, if I find a piece of jewelry with an intaglio, I buy it (barter as best I can) keep it for a while and then eventually put it in my case to sell.  They always sell, rather quickly in fact, but I know one day I will find the one I truly want and keep it.  

As a post script, a month or so back I went to the Getty Villa in Malibu and they had an exhibit of ancient carved jewels.  Many of them over 2000 years old.  It was exquisite and rekindled that old jewelry hunters flame for that intaglio carved slide bracelet. 

As a little girl we lived on Coldwater Canyon in an apartment.  The building is still there with the white rod iron railings.  The milk was delivered but I remember one time in particular when my older sister and I were bored and we decided to take all the empty bottles and drop them off the second floor balcony.  Boy oh boy did we get it.  I can still remember that spanking.

Does anyone remember the Helms Bakery Truck.  They were "Woodies" the trucks the surfers later used for going to the beach.  Anyway, they had all these beautiful hand made wooden drawers on slides that glided out and were full of donuts.  That truck smelled so delicious.  The donuts were made that morning and the "Helms Bakery Man" would blow his truck whistle and we all ran to get donuts,  and they were so good!  I liked twister donuts or jellies.  

The cleaner also picked up an delivered.  I found out my local cleaners is doing that again which is cool.

The last milk deliveries were at the ranch in the 60’s to the early 70’s and it was the Alta Dena Dairy.  They had those big old trucks - almost like UPS.  He didn’t leave it on the door step, he knocked and came in and put them in the fridge.  We also had a cellar built out of a hillside and there was another fridge in there and he would put the extras in there.  With about 10 kids living at the ranch we needed a lot of milk. WE used Alta Dena because they had raw milk with no hormones.

Deniseann

You have had an interesting career and what a life.  

I like all kinds of clothes and I do like when men and women dress up.  It is fun and I think they look great.  When I worked in companies and not for our business I wore both dresses and pants and was happy for it.  But pants never took over and vice versa.  Now I am almost always in pants - I work at home and exercise or yoga pants are the most comfortable and I don’t care if they get dirty if I have to go out and climb the hill to rescue a lizard from the dog. — LOL 

Rachel

I understand totally.  To me it is an issue of cultural sensitivity and we are classy enough to be that. 

Sara

During the Clinton years it was the republicans that were yelling for welfare reform.  When the dems were routed in 94 and the republicans took the majority they pressed for welfare reform and Clinton was forced to do it.  He didn’t want to.  (I voted for Clinton and like and liked him ) I believe that Rahm Emmanuel worked on welfare reform with the repubs, but it took both dems and repubs checking and balancing each other to get it done.  

I know Willy Brown (a dem) working with a repub governor, led the charge in California, which then led to more prosperity - but that was also dems working with repubs.  When those legislators retired or were retired in CA, the new ones changed it back and bankrupted our state. Budgeted and funded programs with monies they didn’t have.  At the time California was the 6th largest economic force in the world and now it is the 8th and we are going down further, which has never happened before. They made big bureaucratic programs that are sinking this state.  That is one of the reasons I worry about this bill.  People keep saying  "look at California and don’t make the same mistakes."  If only.

I wish on the run up to the Iraq war the dems had been the party of NO.  We would have a very different nation right now.

You and I both know that there has to be change I just think that those guys have lost their way a little. 

ONe of the things that upsets me most is that we have to borrow from the CHinese to do this.  The Chinese have 400 million in their country who are not insured or get no benefits.  THat is more than the population of the US.  They are of the old communist workers who are considered not trainable for the new tech and manufacturing jobs.  They have no homes, they wander through china looking for work - they are homeless.  How can the Chinese lend us this money.  THey are heading for a credit crisis like the one we just went through.  So I just don’t see how this bill is feasible.  Crazy. 

deber

I think you are right about the administration making the mistake in believing they had a "mandate" to do whatever they wanted.  I remember after the ‘04 election and Bush was re-elected and there were no recount controversies, they announced that they knew they had a "mandate" to go forward.   I thought "A WHAT?"  No one has a mandate.  The country is almost divided 50/50 so how could that be a mandate.  Maybe if someone got 85% of the votes or something that would be a mandate, but sorry - no mandates in this country, it is supposed to be a democracy.

So now we have the new boys in town Rahm, Axelrod and Gibbs, along with the six political action groups that call into the WH on a daily basis believing they have a "mandate".  Don’t they get it - this country has polled center right for decades - that was Clinton’s lesson and once he started governing from the center we had some changes and prosperity.  So a "healthcare mandate" seems like an odd concept to hold.  The two sides have to work together or it is disaster as we are having now.

I do not want big government in control of my life, they can’t even control medicare fraud.  What a joke.  I just know that the system is broken and something needs to be done. 

Sara

You are right, the concept of health insurance isn’t bad, it is just how we approach it that is the problem.  Maybe if it was not bought through the employers and every family got tax credits for it - or something, I think we would have a completely different situation right now.  More competition in the system.  

Besides Medicare and Medicaid reform which would clean up the fraud, we definitely have to take a look at torte reform.  Reid and Pelosi handed a gift to the trial lawyers with one paragraph in the bill which would deny states that have torte reform, other credits or monies.  The trial lawyers don’t want runaway medical awards to be addressed - so that won’t bring down what doctors charge because they will have to continue buying high premiums for malpractice insurance.  

California has torte limitations on awards and it is slowly changing the environment.  Our problem is that we have a higher percentage of welfare recipients in California than anywhere else in the nation, so our medicare and medicaid costs are enormous.

One argument that everyone makes about healthcare reform is that the US has the highest cost of healthcare in the world. More than half of that cost is due to medicare and $90 Billion of medicare cost is due to fraud in the system.  I wish I knew if the bill addressed that.  

The republicans recently released their bill and it was scored by the Congressional Budget Office.  My husband told me what the results were, but I can’t remember them all and haven’t looked them up.  The CBO scored their bill as bringing down the deficit, would lower healthcare costs and not raise taxes on anyone.  If the fraud is stopped in medicare then there will be more funds for the uninsurable who should be taken care of.

Sara

You make a very credible and interesting argument and I understand the reasoning behind it since I am an employer.  The only point I would make is that the public option is for those without insurance and so, I think we are led to believe, that employers would go on supplying health insurance benefits to their employees.  For a time anyway, until an employer would decide that the fine was cheaper than paying the insurance.  

The government is never competition for industry.  THe state fund Workers comp in CA took over the business several years back and small firms went out of business. Unfortunately, State Comp then became rife with corruption because dishonest people took advantage of the system due to lack of oversight.  There was just a huge budget that paid out claims and charged employers exorbitant premiums.  I know - it almost put us out of business, but we were required to have it so we had to keep it.  

It wasn’t until work comp insurance was opened up to interstate competition that the prices went down - it took time, but ours eventually went down by 75%.   Unfortunately, recently, although we have never had a claim against us ( thank God), our prices have almost doubled because the SEIU (which has had 22 meetings at the WH) made a deal with the President that if Gov Schwarzenegger insisted on continuing furloughs, CA would be excluded from more stimulus funds.  Well, the governor didn’t relent so State Fund raised their prices on everyone because they didn’t want to lose jobs because of lack of funds.  I called them and asked them to come to my office for an appointment so they could decide which employee was going to have to be fired because we cannot afford this.  Now, it seems that State Fund is shooting we the employer and themselves in the foot.  Since unemployment is close to 12% they have lost revenue, so they think, we don’t want to fire more people, we will just make small business pay more.  Isn’t that stealing from me?  Feels like it.  And they can do it too - just like the feds can do with that crazy bill.

From what I have been able to learn, the public option will be run by the current insurance industry, there are always guidelines, but in government, there are always ways to get around a guidelines which eventually bankrupts the system.  If you didn’t see the 60 Minutes segment a couple of weeks ago called Easy Money, you should take a look - it is on the CBS website. Thieves come in and raid the larder of we the people’s money and there is very little oversight or prosecution.  The estimates I have heard regarding medicare fraud are $90billion per year.  It is often said that the US has the highest medical costs in the world but no one mentions that over 50% of our costs are due to Medicare and $90 Billion of that is fraud.  

I think the government should clean up medicare and after saving some money try to come up with a better bill that will actually do something to bring down costs.

The reason Rasmussen are sometimes at odds with other polls is that they poll likely voters, not just everyone.  This election cycle they did not poll the 18-25 crowd because they usually don’t show up for these cycles.  They are highly respected in the industry for their work and accuracy.  Although, I am no fool, any pollster can get whatever info they want by how they phrase an idea or question.  They all do it.  I get telephone polled by political groups a lot and mail polled by the ACLU.  It is interesting to see how they phrase questions to get the viewpoint they want.  Sometimes the questions are unanswerable and I tell the pollster or write in the margins to the ACLU. LOL  

Here is a summary of the repub’s plan:

 http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/summary.pdf

 Health Care - GOP Solutions for America - GOP.gov