Open Thread Wednesday, October 17, 2012

teddy, knight and jdf you need to check out last weeks open thread.

Still here, the same goes for you. Same convo about a couple of weeks ago about grimaldis.

Seen the poster all over the neighborhood for filming of “Delivery Man, 533 Kids Production”? It’s this. A Dreamworks remake of a Canadian film about a man who fathers 533 kids via donated sperm. Vince Vaughn is playing the lead.

How come the comment threads on BHB have been getting mostly cut off lately? This Open Thread shows 36 comments, but only the last 6 are visible.

Heightster: click on “older comments” right below the last comment posted.

Goop came out with its Brooklyn list… and though I doubt Gwen meant to ignore the Heights, there isn’t a single mention of any bk heights site or business. http://www.goop.com/journal/go/197/brooklyn

Oddly enough I think that is about right, there isn’t much to brag about on montague street these days.

Crusty — YOU are the moron. YOU are the brainwashed idiot… You must read the Daily News and think you know a thing or two about politics. You know nothing. LOL. Have fun in your own, sad world… Obama has NOT lowered taxes! What a joke. And he is raising them for everyone if he gets elected again — including the poor. As a matter of fact, Obamacare is nothing but a STACK of new fees and taxes. So simple and sad you are. I’m sorry you have nothing in life except a keyboard. You must be very lonely.

@HenryLoL. Listen to something other than Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity once in a while.

Here is PolitiFact

Here, we’re going to look at his claim to cut taxes for “middle-class families and small businesses.” (We’ve been tracking all of Obama’s campaign promises about taxes on our Obameter.)

Obama has signed off on two major tax cuts for middle-class families: the Making Work Pay tax credit that was part of the economic stimulus of 2009 and a temporary reduction in Social Security payroll taxes that went into effect in 2011.

As part of the stimulus, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, single workers collected a $400 tax credit, and working couples got $800. The credit didn’t come in the form of a check; it worked out so that most workers had about $400 less in federal income taxes withheld from their paychecks spread out over the entire year.

Most workers received a tax cut under that plan, with the exception of some high earners. The tax cuts phased out for couples who make more than $250,000 or a single person making over $200,000, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center .

The result mirrored what Obama promised he would do on the campaign. Obama pledged tax cuts of $500 for each worker and $1,000 for working couples. We rated the promise a Compromise on our Obameter because the resulting tax cut was a little lower than what Obama wanted.

That tax cut expired at the end of 2011. But Obama won another round of tax cuts for most workers in a December 2010 tax deal with Republicans in Congress. Those tax cuts — a temporary reduction in worker’s payroll taxes, worth about 2 percent of total earnings — expire in 2013. Again, the tax cut didn’t come as a check, but gives workers a little more in their paychecks than they would have otherwise.

Obama also has passed an array of tax cuts for small businesses.

Eight of them were included in the stimulus, the Affordable Care Act (also known as the health care law), and the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (also known as the HIRE Act). Among the cuts were the exclusion of up to 75 percent of capital gains on key small business investments; a tax credit for the cost of health insurance for small business employees and new tax credits for hiring Americans out of work for at least two months.

Another eight cuts came via the Small Business Jobs Act, signed by Obama in September of 2010. These included: adding deductions for business cell phone use; creating a new deduction for health care costs for the self-employed; allowing greater deductions for business start-up expenses; eliminating taxes on all capital gains from key small business investments, and raising the small business expense limit to $500,000.

Three months later, the president signed a tax bill that raised the expense limit to 100 percent of small business new investments until the end of 2011. It also extended the elimination of capital gains taxes for small business investments through the end of 2012. (For more details, see our previous fact-check that provided at least 16 tax cuts to small businesses; we rated it Mostly True.)

To be clear, this doesn’t mean the middle-class and small businesses haven’t seen any tax increases under the Obama administration. We rated his campaign promise that no family making less than $250,000 will see “any form of tax increase” as Promise Broken. Obama has signed off on new taxes on cigarettes and indoor tanning. His health care law includes a tax penalty for people who don’t buy health insurance; that starts in 2014. (It includes hardship exemptions for people who can’t find affordable policies.)

Also, under the health care law, small businesses that have more than 50 employees that don’t offer their employees health insurance could face fines.

Our ruling

Obama has raised some taxes during his presidency, but he’s also pursued broad-based tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses. We particularly give weight here to the tax cuts that were part of the stimulus and the payroll tax holiday, which reduced taxes for broad swaths of the workforce. Some small businesses may have been hit by new taxes that were part of Obama’s health law, but these would depend on the particular circumstances of each business. Also, there were new taxes on cigarettes and indoor tanning.

Obama said he has “cut taxes for those who need it – middle-class families, small businesses.” He has, but he also has raised some taxes. So while his statement is accurate, it lacks that additional context. We rate his claim Mostly True.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/sep/07/barack-obama/barack-obama-said-hes-cut-taxes-middle-class-famil/

@HenryLoL. You still haven’t answered my questions. Do you believe in 1) global warming 2) evolution and 3) the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate? It’s my wingnut test.

AmyinBH – Did a lazy road trip Wednesday up 9W on the West side of the Hudson to Stoney Point, picked up Rt 106 West, crossed through Harriman State Park (magical), then Rt 17 South to Sloatsburg for lunch at Rhodes – a pretty good biker pub. Total, with lunch, a 5-hour trip, with awesome visuals once you’re about an hour north.

The tax cuts I believe you were referring to were an extension of Bush-era tax cuts – they were supported by BOTH parties. The health care law does in fact raise Medicare taxes – it goes into effect in 2013. I don’t think the fear that taxes will be raised more in the future to support the law is unfounded, either – and I don’t think believing that taxes will go up makes someone a right wing lunatic who also believes all the other nonsense you assume Henry believes.

I’m also a bit confused that you’re so worked up that I won’t vote for either major candidate, but you’re even more worked up that some of the people who will be voting for one or the other are ignorant of the facts that would help them make a good choice. Should they not vote because they’re idiots, or should they vote because of your claptrap about having to vote for a major party candidate in order to be a good citizen?

@willowtowncop it’s tiresome to keep correcting the misstatements but here goes again.

1) The tax cuts I was talking about we’re not the Bush tax cuts. Are you not aware that your payroll taxes have been cut by Obama? Every week you had more take home pay as a result. My post above outlines all the other tax cuts that Obama put into place. I am not going to repeat them here.

2) you said, “and I don’t think believing that taxes will go up makes someone a right wing lunatic”. I never said it did. Again I don’t object to people’s opinion but I do object to factual lies. Henry said, “Obama has NOT lowered taxes! What a joke.” That is just FACTUALLY UNTRUE. Repeating these lies and myths about Obama because of some Obama Derrangement Syndrome does make someone a right wing lunatic in my opinion. Same with the Birth Certificate nonsense and Obama is a secret Muslim idiocy. Truth matters. Facts matter.

Sorry if I get too “worked up” for your tastes about what happens to our country. It DOES make a difference who is at the helm of our ship of state. If you don’t believe so then we will just have to agree to disagree.

From the Associated Press:
“A temporary reduction in Social Security payroll taxes is due to expire at the end of the year and hardly anyone in Washington is pushing to extend it. Neither President Obama nor GOP challenger Mitt Romney has proposed an extension, and it probably wouldn’t get through Congress anyway, with lawmakers in both parties down on the idea.”

Not that it really made much difference to have 47% of my paycheck forcibly removed for stupid wars and failed anti poverty programs instead of the 48% that will be removed come January.