Bailout Money going to investor dividends
It doesn’t get any sweeter than this baby!
Now read this next paragraph real closely and tell me what the problem is…
The government said it was giving banks more money so they could make more loans. Dollars paid to shareholders don’t serve that purpose, but Treasury officials say that suspending quarterly dividend payments would have deterred banks from participating in the voluntary program.
I’m so tired of this BS man. So tired of it.
Finally Bush found some people who would greet him as a liberator.
F
U
C
K
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The problem is the dumb fucks who wrote this piece of shit legislation left out some key words.
Weeeee! Consumers get screwed again! Weeeee!
BTW, Jason, in the spirit of the Phils success, your comment should have been spelled:
P
H
U
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K
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It gets worse. Dividends are the least-known but biggest of Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. Before Bush dividends were treated as regular income and taxed at the Clinton rates (top rate 39%).
Bush changed that to treat dividends the same as capital gains and cut both to 15%.
So Bush cut the tax rate on dividends from 39% to 15%. That cut in part explains why equities (and jobs) have not expanded during the Bush administration. Corporations have changed their behavior, diverting money to shareholder dividends instead of business reinvestment.
If Obama keeps his promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire, the rate on dividends will go back up to 39%. That ought to deter some of this thievery. Hopefully Obama can get it done before the bailout money has all been, um, redistributed.
If Obama really has brass balls he will stop this shit with an EO on Day One.
I hope a President Obama will put the screws to these incompetent, criminal banks. It’s too bad we have Bush, Paulson and Bernanke and their free-market ideology still running the show. And yes, the Democrats should have made better legislation.
Mike Castle voted for this bailout…protecting the biggest bankers and his favorite corporate financial services industry. What did he get for his vote…millions from the companies he has been protecting.
While the bailout made our 401k’s become 101Ks, and our pension plans reduced by at least l/3, Castle has some nerve to pretend he is a moderate.
KHN was absolutely correct, No Banker Left Behind! She saw the writing on the wall and would have voted with some democrats in Congress against it.
How can we trust Mike Castle for another two years while the new bailouts will be presented.
How smart was Castle to vote with corporate America and the banksters, and how smart was KHN to call him out on his failed policies.
Vote for Karen Hartley Nagle who hasnt taken one penny from the bankers, and will work hard to make sure we the citizens don’t get screwed again.
Mike Castle should be put to pasture for these terrible votes which destroyed our economy. It will take decades to recover from his vote.
Shouldn’t Mike Castle’s donors/contributor banker friends stop you from voting for him?
This is awesome… and it is real, not a staged photograph:
http://wonkette.com/403920/jesus-people-pray-that-false-idol-will-save-gods-economy
anon wrote:
Not exactly. Dividends will be taxed as ordinary income, so they will be taxed at the rate incurred by the taxpayer’s tax bracket, which might not be the top, 39.6% bracket.
You have written as though all dividend earners are the fat cats, but that’s untrue. Many retirees are invested in things which pay dividends, as a continuing source of income.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with taxing either dividends or capital gains as ordinary income, as long as capital gains are indexed for inflation. I see no particular reason why someone making $50,000, with $10,000 in dividends, should be taxed less than someone making $50,000 entirely through wages. Income ought to be income, period. But we ought to cut federal spending, drastically, and reduce federal tax rates, regardless of the income source, for everyone.
Not exactly. Dividends will be taxed as ordinary income, so they will be taxed at the rate incurred by the taxpayer’s tax bracket, which might not be the top, 39.6% bracket.
Link please…
Dividends will be taxed as ordinary income, so they will be taxed at the rate incurred by the taxpayer’s tax bracket, which might not be the top, 39.6% bracket.
Well, that is a bit of a gray area… Bush cut the tax on dividends to ZERO for people in the 10 and 15% tax bracket, that is up to $65K for married or widowed, so that should cover most retireees.
Obama has pledged to roll back only the tax cuts for the rich, so we’ll see what happens to that 0% rate on retiree dividends.
Anyway, most retirees depend on big pension funds rather than direct stock dividends, and their pension payouts are taxed as regular income, but as retirees presumably they are in a lower bracket and of course, most of those pension accruals are tax-deferred.
Regardless, setting the top rate back to 39% for dividends should move more money back to reinvestment and jobs.
You have written as though all dividend earners are the fat cats, but that’s untrue. Many retirees are invested in things which pay dividends, as a continuing source of income.
link please…
this is a flimsy arguement and you know it. There is a founding father philosophy here regarding being a productive member of society. You seem to conveniently forget.
We can get into the productive to society arguement when it comes to income and taxing said income if you want though.
but that will lead into the death tax and being patriotic and not being a monarchy
Good catch, Squishy One… Obama’s plan says dividends will go up to 20%, not 39%… ,and capital gains to 20%…my bad for assuming.
Still a deterrrent effect, but not as effective for creating reinvestment.
here’s the link to a summary of the tax plan from Obama’s website:
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/taxes/Factsheet_Tax_Plan_FINAL.pdf
I was surprised to see how much of the Bush tax cuts Obama is actually leaving in place.
OK, here it is:
You should never doubt me; I look up this stuff while I write.
Up to now most retirees receive an old fashioned pension. These dont pay dividends, they are a defined benefit plan that pays income. Soon most retirees will live off social security as companies have done away with the typical pension, leaving employees to fund their own retirement through 401(k)s, IRAs, annuities, etc. Their distributions are taxed at their income level. Therefore, someone who was wise with money and does not have high living expenses at retirement, can take less from those sources or none at all as long as they satisfy they RMD. On the other hand some people may need as much from those sources as possible, therefore requiring them to take as much as possible.
anon wrote:
You shouldn’t be. That is because Mr Obama has said that he’d leave that stuff in place, but he won’t; he’s simply lying to you. Like Bill Clinton’s 1992 promise of a “middle class tax cut,” it’s for the consumption of stupid voters, but is not seriously meant.
The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire in 2010. That means that there will be an automatic, across-the-board tax increase, for everybody, and the Democrats don’t have to do a single thing for those increases to occur. With over $200 billion in additional spending, per year, promised by Mr Obama, with the Iraq war, from which he has said he would not withdraw “precipitously,” still going on, and a $700+ billion financial services bailout bill, it doesn’t matter whether Mr Obama would really, really like to cut taxes for the middle class, he can’t do it; you’d be looking at a trillion dollar yearly deficit.
i didn’t doubt you actually, I just wanted the link 🙂
dana,
I don’t think it will happen across the board. You and I both know the AMT will be adjusted….
That is because Mr Obama has said that he’d leave that stuff in place, but he won’t; he’s simply lying to you.
I certainly hope so. We have a damn big debt and deficit to pay down.
Dana,
Honest question. Do you think Bush has done a good job?
Delaware’s Most Name-Changingest Blogger wrote:
Actually, no, I don’t know that. The AMT adjustment benefits only those earning well over $100,000. The actual number isn’t a hard-and-fast cut-off, but depends on various exemptions and deductions. Why, given Mr Biden’s statement that it’s “patriotic” of higher-income earners to pay more in taxes, would Mr Obama or the Democrats bother with an AMT fix?
Jason: Honest answer: if George Bush could run again, I’d vote for him again!
He hasn’t been perfect; no president is. He has allowed the Congress to spend way, way, way too much money. He failed to get the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts made permanent. He went along with the idiotic No Child Left Behind act.
But his foreign policy has been mostly right, and his judicial appointments outstanding.
As for the economy, I give neither credit nor blame to presidents or congresses; the federal government simply does not control the economy.
Oh, and while President Bush’s poll numbers are in the toilet now, in thirty years he will be regarded as one of our better presidents.
Because “higher-income” in Obama’s plan seems to start at $250K.
And that sounds about right.
See, there is a difference between big money and small money. Small money is earned by work, and it all goes for living expenses. But when you have big money, you have the opportunity to invest it and make more money without working. You are rewarded not for your work but for your risk-taking. But if you only have small money you do not have that opportunity.
That is why big money is taxed at a different rate from small money. Big money is qualitatively different, and when you have it you enjoy different benefits and different rules than the small-money people.
The dividing line between big and small money is political. Obama seems to have set it at $250K. If that isn’t right, we can quibble about it and reset it again in a few years.
You guys desperately want this election to be about who will deliver the biggest tax cut. But Obama won’t play by those rules, and he’s winning, and that is confusing you.
Of course Obama’s plan won’t be implemented to the letter. But I trust his judgment in working it out, because he has the right priorities.
“Oh, and while President Bush’s poll numbers are in the toilet now, in thirty years he will be regarded as one of our better presidents.”
Thirty years sounds like a long time for you to be waxing that carrot.
anon wrote:
Except that it isn’t. Mr Obama’s plan calls for restoring the two top brackets — currently 33 and 35% — to their Clinton era rates of 36% and 39.6%. (This is a PDF file, and you can find the citation under “Ordinary Income,” hafway down page five.) The current 33% bracket doesn’t begin at $250,000, but at $164,551 for singles and $200,301 for married couples filing jointly.
Mr Obama also said that he would return the 1990s level hase-outs for personal exemptions, but that he would make adjustments to help singles earning less than $200,000 and married couples earning less than $250,000, so that the phase-out changes wouldn’t effect them, but the increased rates still would.
30 years from now?
You mean when they learn the full story about lying us into war?
When they can learn more about the Torture?
You mean the Stock Market Crash he poorly managed?
You mean when they see how he handled katrina?
You mean when they see he was President over one of the most corrupt GOP Congress ever? (See Jack Abramoff)
Seriously Dana you are dreaming….
Donsquishy conveniently forgets who controls the house and senate when he blames Bush for everything.
Phil go soak your head.
Bush has been calling the shots for 8 years and screwed everythign up.
No you want to say that the Congress has all the power. Well, 78% of America thinks you are a dope.