How Our Taxes Work

I got this from a Ning Social Network I belong to, http://sta.rtup.biz. If you voted for Obama, it should make you wonder why.

This might help some of you understand the way our tax laws are set up.


Suppose that every day, ten men go out for a beer and the bill for all ten

comes to $100.


If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like

this:


The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.


The fifth would pay $1.


The sixth would pay $3.


The seventh would pay $7.


The eighth would pay $12.


The ninth would pay $18.


The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.


So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day

and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw

them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going

to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. 'Drinks for the ten now cost

just $80.The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes

so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But

what about! the other six men - the paying customers?


How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair

share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they

subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man

would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested

that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount,

and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.


And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).


The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).


The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).


The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).


The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).


The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).




Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to

drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare

their savings.



'I only got a dollar out of the $20,' declared the sixth man.


He pointed to the tenth man,' but he got $10! ''Yeah, that's right,'

exclaimed the fifth man.


'I only saved a dollar, too.. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!


''That's true!!' shouted the seventh man.


'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two?


The wealthy get all the breaks!


''Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get

anything at all. The system exploits the poor!


'The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth

man (the richest) didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had

beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered

something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for

even half of the bill!


And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax

system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from

a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they

just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas

where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.


For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.



David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.Professor of Economics University of Georgia

Sarah Palin: The Truth Will Set You Free

Of course in these political days, people with nothing better to do with their time find ways to smear candidates running for office. Many times rumors are made up in the hopes that there will be no, or little fact-checking. And even when there is fact-checking, well the damage is done. And that is the point for these hateful people that live on both sides of the isle. They want to damage upstanding individual's reputations in the hopes there will be enough unresearched backlash to ruin them.

Here you will see some examples of some very careless people posting whatever they feel like about Sarah Palin. There will also be positive and constructive criticism of Governor Palin. This is a direct feed from Twitter with the various renditions of the search term "Sarah Palin". If you watch the updates closely, you will notice those with the hateful attitudes, hateful messages, hateful rumors; many that are outright lies! This feed updates every thirty minutes with only 5 new posts. If all you see is "Palin Twitter Updates", without 5 bullet-point posts (apparently Twitter can be finicky), or if you'd just like to read more, visit http://www.twitter.com/twitting4palin [Editor's Note: this account is now closed].

[Editor's Note: Had to remove the feed as it was no longer functioning]

After getting frustrated reading many of the lies about Governor Palin, I saw a post that directed me to a Fact Checker website that actually verified that many statements about Sarah Palin were untrue. I also found This Website run by Charlie Martin, who has researched and set the record straight on over 70 Sarah Palin rumors. Here are a couple rumors he put to rest:

• #40 yes, she did ask the librarian if some books could be withdrawn because of being offensive; no, they couldn’t; yes, it was “rhetorical”, at least as was reported contemporaneously in 1996[1] ; yes she did threaten to fire the librarian a month later; no, that wasn’t over the books thing but instead over administrative issues; no, the librarian wasn’t fired either; yes, the librarian was a big supporter of one of her political opponents; yes, the librarian was also the girlfriend of the Chief of police mentioned above; no, this is not the first time in the history of civilization that someone has been threatened with being fired over a political dispute
• #41 No the list of books she wanted to ban that’s being passed around isn’t real; among other things, it includes a number of books published after her time in office there.

And

• #50 No, she doesn’t believe in “abstinence only” education. Yes, she thinks abstinence is an effective way of preventing pregnancy. Duh. Yes, she believes kids should learn about condom use in schools.
• #51 Yes, she did smoke marijuana, when it was legal in Alaska. Yes, she apparently did inhale.

It is great to have these resources to double check silly comments that you read on websites and blogs. And both websites are debunking Obama rumors too, so they are not partisan. You just have to know where to look to find that information.

I hope this helps you to not over react when you read something about someone on the Internet without fact-checking to verify the authenticity. But sometimes you can even go to a site you trust and find that it seems the information is authentic, when in fact, that site also did not verify the information before posting it. One classic example is a site called Daily KOS, a liberal blog site. Unfortunately someone there started a potentially damaging rumor about Sarah Palin covering for her daughter's pregnancy. Many sites ran with the story, only to look foolish because they didn't bother to check the facts. Now Daily KOS is regarded in my opinion as rumor mill for trash talking liberals.

So, whether you are for McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden, before you start spreading rumors with the hopes of damaging one's character, you better make sure you have your facts right.

Sarah Palin's Acceptance Speech

This was such a great speech! 37 million viewers compared to some twenty million that watched Biden's acceptance speech. Is this a preview of the elections? Are American's more interested in what a woman's perspective will bring to the VP seat in the white house, rather than what a life long Senator will bring? If you missed it, here it is again. 

Embedded Video

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