Yes
No
Last edited by FishSticker; 01-20-2017 at 11:19 AM.
Fuck no not until we can see where the money is spent now. All these dot people I see now don't do a fucking thing all day. As said before there is spots on I-95 and 26 that have been fucked up for 20 years.
Quote Originally Posted by FHF
Bridges on hwy 301 are still out due to flood. Yes..flood in 2015! They have been working on that section of road for 1.5 years. It is maybe 1/2 mile stretch.
I wonder how much that is costing taxpayers???
Quote Originally Posted by Chuck the Duck Slayer
Yep and usually an Orange Hi-Viz vest. On most roadway construction jobs you will have the paving crew (CR Jackson, Lane, Sanders, Banks), a testing firm acting on behalf of the SCDOT (Terracon, S&ME, ESP) and maybe just maybe a SCDOT inspector sitting in his truck. SCDOT does not build roads.
And no one in state gov is holding them accountable for the delays, over runs etc.... THE STATE DOES NOT NEED ANY MORE MONEY WHEN THEY WASTE IT LIKE THIS!
Last edited by mello_collins; 01-20-2017 at 03:49 PM.
If a man is alone in the woods, says something, and a woman does not hear, is he still wrong?
Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out. —George Carlin
Common sense is not a gift. It's a punishment because you have to deal with everyone else who doesn't have it.
Still want an answer to my question DT. Why can't the people VOTE on it?
Gettin old is for pussies! AND MY NEW TRUE people say like Capt. Tom >>>>>>>>>/
"Wow, often imitated but never duplicated. No one can do it like the master. My hat is off to you DRDUCK!"
Fishsticker over here is acting like he's got some sort of deeper understanding than some of you...us perhaps, whatever. He's a jackass. And that's okay. Sometimes I'm a jackass. 2oofer is a jackass. There are many of us. Then again maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better. The reality is, employees pay about half their earnings in direct and indirect taxes. Business owners can shelter themselves in various ways, but if you work for someone else, 40 to 50% is your reality.
Fish is right on the jackass part... I'll never argue that fact....Don't want to either.
To address his point, I do not have a deeper understanding, but what I do have is a lack of rage clouding my judgement. My personal "number" for this discussion is right around 30% including a moderate amount of consumer taxation. I am not what would be considered wealthy and I have never been accused of being frugal in all my days. But I do recognize what comes off at the back end of the tax year. Property taxes on our homes? Deductible. Property taxes on my boats, motors, vehicles? Deductible. 20k mortgage interest? Yep.... Deductible. Kids?? Yet again...
Take the time and do the math for the entire year and you should find its not as bad as you actually think. As much as I want to get onto the bandwagon of cussing how much the Govt is in our pockets, it's is not as bad as y'all are making it out to be.
If it is that bad for most then I guess I really am just that much smarter than the average bear.
Last edited by FishSticker; 01-20-2017 at 01:32 PM.
I'm 29yrs old.
No kids.
Sure, I can deduct my charitable donations, whatever interest I'm paying on my mortgage, property taxes, etc.
It still leaves me in the 40%+ range. Period. There's no arguing that fact.
Just be cause you deduct it, doesn't mean you don't pay taxes on it. It may just get you to a different bracket.
Regardless, if you add it up, my numbers work. There's no getting around it without breaking the law. Fact.
By my quick calculation, I'm at 42-43%. I'll give you a long shot guess of +/- 5%.
I think you just made my point for me. If at the end of the year I am at a lower tax bracket than I was on Jan 1....then I have a decreased my tax liability.
Just because you paid taxes throughout the year doesn't mean that money is gone and never to be seen again. You have either recognized the tax "return" throughout the year through the dependents you claim or you will recognize via a check in the spring every year. Either way cash in your pocket which I am fairly certain you grasp the concept of.
Just for simple math, Bubba has a 100k household... should have a 20k((or somewhere thereabouts) income tax liability at the end of they year after deductions. 20%. Vehicle tax 1k. 21% Boat/motor taxes 1k. 22% House taxes 1.5k. 23.5% Bubba has 18k worth of mortgage payments(that aren't taxed)which leaves Bubba with 58.5k of his original 100k. This does not include non taxed 401k contributions, pretax healthcare premiums, etc, so lets call that 13.5k leaving Bubba with a grand total of 45k "cash". Even if Bubba spends every dime of that at gas stations, restaurants, and Wal Mart he will have only paid another 3.6k in sales tax (based on 8%) bringing the total amount of tax he paid out of that 100k to 27.1k or 27% of his income....
Now I know I have left some things off and there are some of you that rent a room in a trailer but yet have 150k worth of diesel trucks and glitter boats that will pay 5k in property taxes and get gang raped by the taxman because you can't afford to own a home (because of the aforementioned trucks and boats) that will send my example askew, but I ask you where are the other 20k worth of taxes some of yall are paying coming from????
To make Tater happy and keep this forum all "Pelag"...
Yall all remind me of the fishermen we all know ....That 8# peanut at the dock on Saturday turned into a 20# gaffer at the office water cooler on Monday.
Last edited by FishSticker; 01-20-2017 at 03:33 PM.
In the interest of y'all not needing to know any more about my finances than you already do, I'll not argue with you.
However, my "quick calculations" used numbers directly off of my W2 and the tax receipts that reside in the file that will go to the CPA in a few weeks.
I'm not sure what my return will be this year, but I'm going to wager that it's nothing worth writing home about. However, that return is not factored into my tax base.
Last edited by turbo; 01-20-2017 at 03:28 PM.
Call me dumb but I can make my mortgage payment with pre tax money? I knew I could write the interest off but damn Obama/Fishsticker will let me write the whole thing off, I am definitely firing my accountant first thing Monday morning.
cut\'em
DuckTape
Go follow SCDOT maintenance vehicles in Florence, Sumter, Darlington and one other county you choose, for one day each (do not tell them you are watching). Then take an informal survey at a couple of local gathering places in each county. See what you learn first hand and what local opinion is. Look to see if the ditches are clean, signs up, signs straight, signs clean, potholes, etc? Then ask yourself: If I owned this business would I be satisfied with my return on investment? Would I invest more and continue with the same business model and management practices? Is this efficiency acceptable?
More than 50% of my last dollar earned goes to taxes/fees. Government takes too much.
The scenario we have watched go down is the house has proposed shifts from the general budget directly to DOT but the senate rejects it. The delayed funding has caught up with us and we have crumbling roads. The senate has favored an increase in gas tax and until recently has not allowed any other funding to pass.
Our most recent bond bill of 2,000,000,000 will only improve sections of our interstates that are causing the most problems. None will go to highways or secondary roads.
If we can put $600,000,000 annually towards roads we can resurface then all within 20 years. That will not pay for widening or new roads.
From my observation, there is no way the legislature will cut the general fund by enough to solve this problem. Yes that is a shame. We cannot cut medicaid because of the federal matching requirements. We cannot cut K-12 education because of the Abbeville Supreme Court decision. If we cut Higher Ed they will just raise tuition and fees. Prisons are already run on a shoestring and lord knows we can't cut law enforcement. The General Reserve fund is constitutionally mandated. Cutting DOT is counter-productive.
When you take out the agencies that you just can't cut it leaves about half at $3,200,000. Do you really want to gut DNR? Our courts? Probation? Conservation Bank? DMV?...
I would like to try cutting as much as possible but the "friends" of each agency will begging to scream, the services provided will suffer, and the general public will scream about the log lines, delayed permits, and on and on.
So that is our conundrum, the senate has held out for a gas tax increase for so long, it appears to be the only solution.
Either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.
And before you go off on your tar and feather discussion read what republicans have done since the takeover. In my paper this morning i read "Over the past twenty years, the number of full time state employees dropped by a quarter- from 42,000 employees in 1995 to about 32,000 in 2015."
"Since 1995- and particularly since the Sanford-Haley years- the state legislature has cut taxes so much that it removed $31.6 billion in revenue. Had that money been invested-or even half of it- the state might not be facing crumbling roads..."
Either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.
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