Thread: Surface to air Missle??

Let's go for it

Without question. I say raise the taxes of anyone making over 200,000 to pay for it.

No way. There is not technology that is feasible and cost effective for commercial applications. Most of the pilots do not even want to carry handguns do you think you anyone will support turning commercial aircraft into military platforms? Basically as soon as you start putting explosive devices or defensive flares etc. on commercial aircraft you have converted it into a military aircraft – a viable target for non-terrorist nations in times of declared war. Additionally do you really want civilians flying around in planes that might automatically engage other fast objects with incendiary weapons or even kinetic weapons? There is a higher risk of accidentally shooting at a friendly than there is a non-friendly. A terrorist could very easily use a dummy or real shoulder launched weapon to force an aircraft to engage it over a populated area and rain down massive debris on collateral targets to embarrass the government with civilian losses. Eventually the military would be forced to take over the commercial airlines. It would be much more cost effective to have military aircraft escort aircraft in on final approach with weapon systems under highly trained human command and control military systems (C4I and sensor fusion technology). This idea is a boondoggle to suck budget out of homeland security for home state pet projects and get government spending to create fake jobs for the bills sponsors. It would take 10’s of years to develop new technology remotely suitable for commercial applications.

Damn OD,, what are you a walking Encylopedia??? You are responses are rather impressive to say the least. Remind me to never get into an intellectual debate with you. Peace bro.

Originally posted by firestorm
Without question. I say raise the taxes of anyone making over 200,000 to pay for it.

They already pay enough.

We need a flat tax rate where no matter what you make, you pay the same percentage!

amen bro. I have heard all the arguments about how this is unfair to people making less money. But that can be fixed by making a minimum threshold where you don't pay anything or only a small amount if under say 35K / year or so.

Can you imagine the efficiency we would have if there was no book keeping and paper work and accountants/lawyers and companies and people did not purposely have to take on expenses for tax advantage purposes? Shoot everyone would be falling over trying to make profits instead of doing defensive things to avoid paying tax. I am actually now against an income tax at all but would settle for a simple flat tax on all forms of income that is about 10% -15%. This would be fair and would make people patriotically want to give every penny they could rather than creatively find ways to avoid paying 36% or so (as I have had to do). I personally got fed up with the tax game and dropped out and refuse to work until there is some incentive to do so again. I have all I need right now so why bother being a slave for the government when they spend the money in very foolish ways and do things I do not support. I am tired of working 4 months out of the year for dead beats and foreign lackeys to get paid off. I get angry when I think of the billions of tax dollars we just gave to Africa for AIDS research when so many of us are out of jobs and in need of assistance here. Ditto for giving some rag-head in Iraq $35 million for bounty for turning in Sadam’s sons – as if they would not have done it for $100 or less. Hell the Iraqi’s are killing GI’s for $20 a pop according to reports. Wonderful world we live in. Sorry this is a sensitive issue for me after paying in hundreds of thousands of dollars into the tax system over my career and getting very little tangible benefit other than a bankrupt post office, a huge government entitlement program and no retirement guaranteed to me for my effort.

Whoa now...He said a flat tax rate. That just makes the brackets flat, it does nothing to change the complexity of the taxable income calculation. You still need accountants and lawyers to compute taxable income. What would be good for the system is if the wealthy had a lower tax rate and spent less time and efford avoiding income taxes. I tell my clients all the time, a tax motivated decision is usually a bad one. Make a business decision and then let's look at the structure to make it tax friendly.

A "flat tax" on revenue will NEVER happen. A national sales tax is more likely but not much. The transition to a sales tax would be a nightmare. What would do with all of the depreciatable assets? Buildings purchased today are depreciated for 39 years. What do you do with the basis?

As a practical matter, the tax system as we know is what we are stuck with.