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It's a national problem

It is inherently a local problem. Homeless people do not live "in the USA", they live "under the bridge at Third and Madison in Sometown". The money to pay for their help is distributed by local agencies. The money is spent for local solutions. There is no "top down solution" because there simply is no way to deal with a local issue like this from the top.

Oh and by the way who is going to pay for it?

Well, in a good world, it would be paid for by charity. In the modern world where "the government" has usurped the role of charity, it has to be "the government". But not the federal government, because it is not a top-down problem. It is a local problem.

Had the government not started to be "charity", then taxpayers wouldn't be paying as much in taxes, and they wouldn't have the attitude that "I'm paying taxes to fix this". We're all being trained that the right way to solve any problem is to hold out our hand and expect someone else to be taxed to pay for the solutions.

That's debatable.

No, that's simple fact. From here, for 2011:

The Top 50 Percent of All Taxpayers Paid 97 Percent of All Income Taxes; the Top 5 Percent Paid 57 Percent of All Income Taxes; and the Top 1 Percent Paid 35 Percent of All Income Taxes in 2011

The top 5% paid 57% of all income taxes. That's a majority.

Now, you can argue that "income tax isn't everything", but your "top-down" solution is going to be paid out of income taxes, so yes, it's everything in this context.

Most taxes are not levied on people who do not have wealth.

Again, that's debatable.

No, again, that's a fact. From the same source, already quoted. If the top 50% are paying 97% of the income taxes, then that means that the other 50% are paying only 3% of the tax. Most of the taxes (97%) are not levied on people who don't have wealth (the bottom 50%).

Rich people have ways of avoiding paying taxes. Or weren't you aware of that?

Apparently you weren't aware that 5% of the people ("the rich") are paying 57% of the income taxes. Yes, there are tax laws that reduce the amount of taxes someone pays, and some of those reductions require someone to actually have money that would have been taxed. That's obvious. You can't get a deduction for a charitable contribution of money unless you had the money, and poor people aren't likely to be able to take advantage of that law. But then, the poor people didn't have the money and weren't being taxed on it in the first place, so they really haven't lost anything by not being able to deduct what they didn't have in income anyway.

The US spends about the same percentage of GDP on social welfare as Switzerland and Australia, and significantly more than Canada.

At last some real objective data. This makes for so much more interesting debate than just citing you own conservative propaganda.
So based on your own data, Norway spends more on welfare, and has a higher standard of living than the US, and is socialist. Do you agree or disagree?

In absolute terms, the US spends more on social welfare per capita than any other major country. Canada, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the UK

It's a bit silly to use absolute terms when the US has 3 times more people than all those countries combined.
As above, percentage of GDP gives a better indicator, and if you toggle the down arrow to sort highest to lowest, the US is near the bottom.

all rank higher on economic liberty than the US.

Yes because economic liberty has little to do with socialism. As your own references show, you can be socialist AND have economic freedom.
So again the socialist countries like NZ, Australia, Canada, Iceland seem to be performing better than the US, agree or disagree?

And the US has the highest corporate tax rates among OECD countries.

Interesting. Although where is this money going?Maybe you're blowing it all on Defence and Prisons instead on health and education?
I'm also aware that the US spends a fair bit on health and education but just isn't getting the same results. I wonder why that is?
Also, just paying higher tax isn't a socialist concept, unless that money is going to benefit those at the bottom, which it clearly isn't in the US.

So, the idea that those other countries are "socialist", even in the sense of being a welfare state, while the US is supposedly not is untenable.

So you're seriously going to try and argue the the US is socialist too now? Or that all the other countries aren't?
Actually I might agree somewhat, the US is a little bit socialist, because it does have some social programs, but your original argument is that socialism is evil, and only small government can succeed is clearly flawed. You've clearly demonstrated that there is a strong correlation between socialist policy and quality of living.

In terms of economic factors (housing, jobs, income), the US outranks all other OECD members.

But this argument isn't about who is the richest, it's about quality of life. Would you rather be rich and unhappy, or mostly rich and happy?

If you ranked countries like Sweden and Germany among US states, they would be among the poorest US states.

As above, slightly less rich, but with better services and higher quality of life overall. I would gladly sacrifice a few extra percent of my income to not have some poor soul have to live on the streets - actually I already do. Would you?

Having lived in several of the countries you list, that agrees with my experience. In particular, I rejected emigrating both to Canada and Australia because I consider the economic opportunities and standard of living to be too low in those countries.

Even though the

Good one. So you conveniently pretend Norway, Australia, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany and Ireland aren't there? Or are you man enough to admit that yes, there are a few socialist countries with higher standard of living than the US?

The US spends about the same percentage of GDP on social welfare as Switzerland and Australia, and significantly more than Canada. In absolute terms, the US spends more on social welfare per capita than any other major country. Canada, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the UK all rank higher on economic liberty than the US. And the US has the highest corporate tax rates among OECD countries. So, the idea that those other countries are "socialist", even in the sense of being a welfare state, while the US is supposedly not is untenable.

In terms of economic factors (housing, jobs, income), the US outranks all other OECD members. If you ranked countries like Sweden and Germany among US states, they would be among the poorest US states. Having lived in several of the countries you list, that agrees with my experience. In particular, I rejected emigrating both to Canada and Australia because I consider the economic opportunities and standard of living to be too low in those countries.

And if we take the wealth inequality of the US into account, then for 99% of Americans, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Sweden, UK, Iceland etc etc have higher standards of living too?

Most comparisons of living standards already look at median incomes or exclude the top 1%, so arguments about "if you take wealth inequality into account" are rooted in a misunderstanding of what that data shows. Furthermore, the levels of inequality in the US are not much higher than other countries; pretax, they are the same or lower than the UK, Spain, Poland, Germany, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Post tax, they are similar to the UK, Canada, Spain, and Australia (0.42 vs. 0.41 and 0.38).

Overall, I agree: the US should be more like Canada, Australia, and Ireland: we should cut back our corporate tax rates to lower levels, and cut back our social welfare spending to the lower levels found in those other countries.

You can tax too much - and you can tax too little. Taxation of zero ends up without enough infrastructure to support multi-national corporations. Check out the Laffer Curve; perhaps most of those big countries are too high? Especially for the US. Not only do we have the highest statutory corporate tax rate in the developed world, and the second highest effective corporate tax rate in the world. I surmise if the US corporate tax rate was down around the OECD average, you'd have a lot less offshoring of profits and operations.

OK - define what is my "fair share"? According to the Tax Foundation (see Table 1), in 2012, the top 1% of taxpayers had 21.9% of the income, but paid 38.1% of all federal income taxes. The bottom 50% of taxpayers had 11.1% of the total income, but paid only 2.8% of the federal taxes.

I happen to think that everyone should have an equal percentage of skin in the game. You make 11.1% of the money, you pay 11.1% of the taxes. You make 38.1% of the money, you pay 38.1% of the taxes. Any other definition of "fair share" is just greed, and a twisting of the english language.

Interestingly, if you confiscated all the reported gross income of the top 1%, it would cover about 1.8 years of the current deficit (running about $1.1 trillion per year - that's the new debt we're racking up). Take it all, and it gets you out of a hole for one budgetary year.

For the past 35+ years we've been having a government redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class to those who are already wealthy.

That's just not true. People are uniformly better off today than they were 35 years ago. What has happened is that tax burdens have shifted somewhat. And if you look at government taxation and spending, you'll find that the only income group that pays substantially more than they receive in government benefits is the top 20%.

We do have a massive problem with crony capitalism in the US, where companies that are in bed with the government and politicians benefit massively. But that's a separate issue from inequality and income distribution.

He neglected to mention that 91% tax rate didn't kick in until the 2016 equivalent of $20 million dollars and only applied to income _over_ that amount.

You are mistaken, he didn't "neglect" to mention it, it is obvious and anyone who knows anything knows that.

What YOU ARE MISSING is that once you hit that rate, you might as well stay home and watch TV, you're done.

No one is going to pay such a rate if they can avoid it, it is stupid.

And besides, let 'em take a 9 month vacation.

Yea, good thing you don't make policy. Perhaps you can move to France where they tried it recently. It just doesn't work the way you think it does.

http://taxfoundation.org/blog/...

If you can afford to live well enough to not give a fuck after you only get 9% of your income I have a hard fucking time feeling sorry for you or your tax rate.

You don't have to care, but you're deluding yourself if you think people will work, earn money, and pay taxes at that rate.

The whole point of passing higher taxes is to raise money, is it not? Well it doesn't raise money if no one is paying the rate, now is it?

France recently tried this, raising the top rate to 75%. Oh sure, that'll bring in a lot of taxes, right?

No, it really doesn't.

http://taxfoundation.org/blog/...

People will avoid such tax rates at all costs.

Bernie's Tax Plan Sucks. Here is how the leading candidates compare on income taxes: Bernie Sanders Establishes four new brackets of 37%, 43%, 48%, and 52%. The top rate applies to taxable income over $10 million. Raises the rate of all other brackets by 2.2%. Hillary Clinton Adds a 4% surtax on income over $5 million. Donald Trump Establishes four tax brackets, with rates of 0%, 10%, 20% and 25%. The top rate applies to to income over $150,000 for single filers and $300,000 for joint filers. Ben Carson Establishes a flat rate of 14.9% on all ordinary income. Alters the standard deduction and personal exemption to exempt wage income under 150% of the federal poverty level of a filer. So Bernie is raising taxes by 2.2% on everyone, Hillary is changing nothing except adding 4% to income over $5 million, Trump is giving the biggest break to the poor where people who earn $25,000 or less a year pay no income tax at all, and Ben Carson establishes a flat tax with exemptions for the truly poor. Oh and here is the source: http://taxfoundation.org/compa...

Why would that happen?

Because of people like you.

The thing you don't get is that employment is a trade. Both sides have to bring something to the table. You aren't entitled to a job. Let's give an example. You wrote elsewhere:

Yes, yes, but then what ? Did they just sit in their warehouse full of goods cackling ?

Of course not. They sold it, at which point they were given money (or if you want to go back four-odd thousand years before money existed, other goods) in exchange, which they then used to fund more production.

Without the consumption - the demand - the whole thing falls apart, because without consumption, production is just a waste of time (and resources).

Well, guess what? Jobs are just like warehouses of goods. If the demand for those jobs isn't there, the jobs aren't there. I find it telling how the parties talking about how economies are about the consumers conveniently forget that employers are consumers of labor. This is a transparent ideological excuse to screw over someone you don't like. Well, my take is different: eat your own dogfood or STFU.

Let's look at some other errors in your current post:

Here's what's missing: leisure time and spending, risk taking, insurance, research and development, and business expansion.

Here's what's missing. Any evidence - heck, even some vaguely coherent reasoning - for that claim.

Where do you think money for those things comes from? Trees? It comes from profits. When you have razor thin profit margins, that's the sort of things which gets lost.

But I'm sure that government will continue to take and squander much more than that razor thin profit margin as is their due. You are blindly arguing ideology.

Walmart had a profit margin of a bit over 3% of revenue in the recent past. California has a sales tax of 7.5% which would apply to almost all Walmart revenue in that state. That's more than double the profits of Walmart right there. And California is notorious for squandering the money it gets. If you look at the map at the bottom of this article you see a lot of states with combined state and local sales tax over 6% (including all ten of the most populous states in the US). And many of those states have a similar reputation for screwing the pooch whenever they get their hands on money.

Well, nothing really. It's just part of the ongoing half century of economic shift to the developing world and growing wage parity between developed and developing worlds.

Which is policy choice. It's unclear why you think the American people should be supporting it. Their Government's responsibility is to them, not the rest of the world.

I think this is like saying its unclear whether the American people should be supporting gravity. The American people don't have a choice. They can't choose for those billions of people to vanish. They can't choose for those billions of people to magically have the same wealth and standard of living as US citizens currently enjoy. This disparity of wealth and cost of labor exists whether you support it or not. It's not policy choice, it's reality.

I notice in a few places you have this delusion that's it just a matter of positive thinking. After all, the very first whine is about how I'm holding us back with my mental failwaves. And it goes all the way to the end with another piteous whine that US citizens can choose via policy to unmake those billions of people who are willing to work for less.

It's time for you to pull your head out of your ass. If your ideas can fail merely because I disagree, then they weren't worth having in the first place. If your ideas can fail merely because reality isn't as you would like, well that's another reason that they aren't worth having.

The US also had a heavy-handed progressive tax system from FDR until Reagan (at one point the top bracket was taxed at 91%), and we did pretty well. Over time, however, we have made cut after cut in the upper tax bracket and especially capital gains such that the system is now effectively regressive.

Odd that rather than increasing GDP growth year over year like trickle-down economics might tell us, in fact, our GDP growth in the last few years is lower than it was during the 90+% tax years.

Yes no individual or corporate income tax in Nevada, that's why Microsoft sells through there. You know if you actually crunch the numbers, you find that Corporate Income taxes shield people from individual taxes, we'd be better off not taxing corporations, so individuals would pay more individually and put a 25% tax on dividends to non-US taxpayers.

The top 1% are paying about 22.8% in income tax alone. And overwhelmingly pay capital gains taxes (which would range from 20% to nearly 40%). The myth that "the rich" don't pay taxes is just that - a myth. In actuality they pay the highest tax rates, paying nearly 40% of all income taxes collected whilst earning less than 22% of all income.

How about we just lower our tax rate to 15%?

Lower? The average effective income tax rate for Americans is 10%. Also, this article is about corporate income taxes, which most flat tax advocates want to lower to 0%. Of course nobody wants to talk about payroll taxes, which more Americans pay more for than income tax.

Fail.

That's personal taxes, not corporate taxes.

And "average" tax rate is a helluva lot different than "marginal" tax rate - which is what's important for a corporation as large as being discussed.

FWIW, the marginal corporate tax rate in the US is 35%.

How about we just lower our tax rate to 15%?

Lower? The average effective income tax rate for Americans is 10%. Also, this article is about corporate income taxes, which most flat tax advocates want to lower to 0%. Of course nobody wants to talk about payroll taxes, which more Americans pay more for than income tax.

http://taxfoundation.org/artic...

At least don't make up lies that are so easily refuted by a simple Google search.

Don't forget the top tax bracket rate was 50% under pinko Ronnie.

Perhaps because removing Obamacare requirements and cutting taxes IS a jobs bill. After all, regulations stifle economic growth, especially in the jobs-growth engine that is small business. And taxes on corporate and personal income negatively impact economic growth, meaning they too restricts jobs growth.

Why should people that don't drive as much subsidize those that do through road taxes?

They don't. This is what taxes on gasoline are for.

Actually, in the United States the largest share - roughly half - of the cost of roads comes from general revenues, not from user-specific taxes and fees. For example, in 2010, state and local governments spent $153 billion on roads. They collected $41 billion in fuel taxes and $13 billion in tolls and other transportation-related non-fuel taxes and charges related to usage. Another $23 billion was paid in vehicle licensing charges (your flat "access" fee). The remaining $76 billion comes from general revenues. (And then there's an infrastructure deficit - deferred maintenance, repair, and replacements - that isn't being paid for right now but is accumulating nevertheless. Right now we're something like $300 billion in the hole just for bridges which need to be replaced.)

So yeah, non-drivers are very much subsidizing the driving population. One can certainly make an argument that the overall economic benefit of having a functional road system is good for society as a whole, but don't for one minute try to suggest that drivers are actually paying their own way.

No the effective corporate rate is closer to 13%

The term "effective" can have multiple meanings.

You take it to mean the average corporate tax paid on profits for some subset of corporations. That number is so low because of massive handouts to corporations by politicians, often the same politicians who complain bitterly about corporations not paying enough. It's also largely irrelevant.

I'm talking about the marginal corporate tax rate plus the marginal taxes on capital gains and dividends; that is what matters for the competitiveness of the US.

50% truly is just something you pulled out of your arse.

Not at all. It's quite straightforward actually:

http://taxfoundation.org/artic...

You need to add capital gains and corporate taxes if you want to know how much the US government actually gets from every dollar earned by a corporation:

http://taxfoundation.org/artic... [taxfoundation.org]

I thought you objected to politically-motivated reports.

The papers and news reports you point to are bogus

Says the guy who just cited tax foundation dot org.

Yes, it's worth a citation.

No, it's not. The claim is bullshit because it computes meaningless numbers for a meaningless group of people. And even taken at face value, it doesn't tell you anything about who is responsible for keeping wages down (as I was saying, it's mainly government policy, plus some competition from abroad).

Yeah, I looked it up:

Again, you point to data about average actual direct corporate taxes paid. I told you why those numbers are irrelevant. What matters is the effective marginal rate, and that is the combination of maximum marginal corporate taxes plus maximum marginal capital gains taxes.

Here is a Politifact analysis of the US corporate tax rate that doesn't even take into account the capital gains tax:

http://www.politifact.com/pund...

We have some of the highest corporate tax rates before and after deductions.

The loopholes in the US tax code should be eliminated. But, politically, many of the people complaining about low average corporate taxes are the same people who put in those loopholes. That is, the combination of low average corporate tax with high marginal corporate tax is even worse than a uniformly high corporate tax.

Our capital gains taxes are also extremely high:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ro...

You need to add capital gains and corporate taxes if you want to know how much the US government actually gets from every dollar earned by a corporation:

http://taxfoundation.org/artic...

Furthermore, corporate taxation doesn't come from some mysterious pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it comes from all shareholders, and a large part of those are direct or indirect retirement investments. The higher you make corporate taxes, the less people money people will have to retire on.

The US needs to sharply lower corporate taxation and capital gains taxes, otherwise both corporations and investors will increasingly go overseas, a process that obviously has already started.

The papers and news reports you point to are bogus; they compute effective corporate tax rates on worldwide earnings, which isn't relevant to anything.

That would be an anomoly where they were providing "shovel ready jobs" to improve the economy. Did you forget that? Anyhow, I should have mentioned that anyhow - a lot of the money comes back in the form of federal tax dollars from the general fund though that is usually used for inter-state roads. You can tell those roads by the sign, they are black and white inside of a seal type of display (for lack of a better word). State roads are, most generally, paid for with gas taxes. Toll roads are *supposed* to be paid for exclusively with taxes in most states though some will have started with a trust and will pay out of that and the toll money.

Is this an anomaly too:

About 70 percent of the construction and maintenance costs of Interstate Highways in the United States have been paid through user fees, primarily the fuel taxes collected by the federal, state, and local governments.
The rest of the costs of these highways are borne by general fund receipts, bond issues, designated property taxes, and other taxes. The federal contribution comes overwhelmingly from motor vehicle and fuel taxes (93.5 percent in 2007), and it makes up about 60 percent of the contributions by the states. However, any local government contributions are overwhelmingly from sources besides user fees

And this:

http://taxfoundation.org/artic...

Nationwide in 2011, highway user fees and user taxes made up just 50.4 percent of state and local expenses on roads. State and local governments spent $153.0 billion on highway, road, and street expenses but raised only $77.1 billion in user fees and user taxes ($12.7 billion in tolls and user fees, $41.2 billion in fuel taxes, and $23.2 billion in vehicle license taxes).[3] The rest was funded by $30 billion in general state and local revenues and $46 billion in federal aid (approximately $28 billion derived from the federal gasoline tax and $18 billion from general federal revenues or deficit financed).

And the local roads, where cyclists are more likely to be sharing roads with cars tend to be the same roads that are largely funded through local tax revenue -- so as a cyclist I'm paying for the roads through my property and other local taxes, while the driver coming in from another county wants me off "his" road, even though he contributes very little to the costs of the road.

Coincidentally, I read an article today about The Tax Foundation calculating how much real money someone would have if you gave them $100 based on the national average. In other words, 100 "National Average Dollars" would buy you $111.61 worth of stuff in Ohio, but only $86.73 worth of stuff in New York (where I live).

Using this, someone with a $100,000 salary in California would be making 112,296 "National Average Dollars" which would buy you 128,197 worth of stuff in South Dakota. To put it another way, to earn $100K someone in South Dakota would need to earn $87,596 "National Average Dollars" - or $24,700 less "National Average Dollars" than someone in California would need to earn.

Of course, these state figures can be misleading. While it is certainly more expensive to live in a comparably sized town in New York than South Dakota, it is less expensive to live in Upstate New York than it is to live on Long Island or New York City.

Personally I think 9% is outrageous. It had better come with a set of Monster network cables

http://taxfoundation.org/blog/...

9% is high, but not the highest. There are places with higher, and I'm not sure in that graphic whether they count hotel taxes and other such surcharges as "sales tax" and that's more like this one is aiming, as an "entertainment tax".

The right doesn't "want stuff" taken from other people. They want to earn it.

Right. That's why most "red" states take more money from the federal government than they contribute and the top 10 states receiving federal assistance are "red" and the bottom 10 are "blue":
http://www.politifact.com/trut...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the...
http://www.motherjones.com/pol...
http://taxfoundation.org/blog/...

Just an FYI on BAE. They have research and production facilities in the United States. They bought a bunch of old IBM buildings in Manassas, VA for one. Also, off-shoring to the UK is about the same cost to an employer as a U.S. hire as far as pay and fringes go, but then you have the cost of remote employee interactions.

That's mostly because we've cut taxes on corps so much that they've got more cash than they know what to do with.

America has one of the highest corporate tax rate in the world. That is the main reason that corporations have been leaving.

I miss the 90% tax bracket. It kept corporate power in check

The 90% tax bracket was an personal rate, that did not apply to corporations. The corporate rate has never been much above 50%, and even that was generally in wartime.

Corporate tax rate by year

Do you understand what 'rich fuckers' do now?

Yes I do! They avoid paying taxes using the following strategies:

-Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich
-Foreign Holdings
-Inversion
-Stock Options
-Living Trusts
-Blind Trusts
-Public Welfare
-Many, Many, More

These strategies do not even account for the many ways that they screw their workforce.

They then take the enormous pile money that they have and use it to buy politicians and
manipulate the system.

They also use the system to privatize anything that can have money squeezed out of it, such as schools, healthcare, and roads. Finally, they use the money to distort the reality of what they have done so people consider them to be "Heros", "Pillars of the Community", and such. The Nobel prize, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, etc. That is what those "Rich Fuckers" do.

Paying for them is a simple matter of raising taxes on wealthy people.

That's a brave thing for a wealthy person like yourself to say and I commend it. Wait, what? You aren't actually wealthy, and instead you just think that somebody who is "not you" should pay for it? Oh, that seems a little more convenient.

While marginal tax rates in the US are not nearly as high as those in many parts of Europe, our income tax system is progressive (i.e. rich pay more) and the lower tax burden is disporportionately structured to benefit the less wealthy. According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, "taxpayers with income over $100,000 a year earn 60 percent of the nation's income and pay 95.2 percent of the income taxes in the United States." Additionally, according to that same source, "Those making over $200,000 comprise just over 5 percent of the nation's taxpayers, earn 32.3 percent of the income, but pay 46.7 percent of total federal taxes and 70 percent of federal income taxes." European systems are actually more "fair" in the sense that larger portions of their incomes are collected in regressive taxes (i.e. everyone pays the same so poor feel it more) like the VAT.

Let's be grown-ups and admit that where we stand depends on where we sit. You probably are not "wealthy," whatever that means to you, and taxing those smug bastards sure sounds good to you, right? Conversely, I am not a "one percenter" (at least not in my state or region), but am part of a family with two working spouses with tech management jobs, and my family's Federal tax bill this year before adjustments and deductions closely approached six figures, or just slightly less than double the median income of the United States.

To someone who is certainly comfortable but by no means rolling in it - child care is ludicrously expensive, and we save as much as is feasible for retirement, taking a lot off our topline income - "oh let's just throw more taxes on people with money" does not sound nearly as good to me as it apparently does to you.

In the United States, your assertion that "working stiffs" are burdened with most of the taxes is not supported by the facts. If you look at total taxes paid (local, state, and Federal) as a percentage of income, the bottom 40% are taxed at about 20% and the top 20% are taxed at about 30% (Washington Post). So the rich are paying taxes at a higher rate then the "working stiffs."

If you look at it from the "income to the Federal government" perspective, as of tax year 2011, the top 5% paid 57% of the collected income tax and the bottom 50% paid 12% of the collected income tax.

Based on those two facts, I assert that the "working stiffs" are not taxed at a higher rate then the rich. Also, at the Federal level, the rich pay far more in taxes. Where the "working stiffs" lose out (and the Washington Post article shows this) is at the local and state level.

http://taxfoundation.org/blog/...

California ranks #4 in terms of overall tax burden, just behind NY, NJ, and CT.

California also has the top marginal income tax rate in the country; even worse if you life in SF.

Facts, you should try getting them sometimes.

Oh, and if you make less than $150k/year, you are barely middle class in the Bay Area.

But you're right: economically, Alabama is pretty lousy too. The fact that California sucks doesn't mean that some other states suck as well.

Do you blame them? The US corporate tax rate is 39.1% Third only to UAE (55%) and Chad (40%).

Funding for public schools needs to increase at all levels.

Why? How much is enough? The average class size right now is about 22 students (average of elementary and secondary), and about $12,600 per student. So that's $277,000 per classroom of funding. Of that, the teacher "cost" is about $6800 per student. Meaning about half the income goes to the teacher (or $149,600 - for a class of 22) and the other half goes for everything else.

IF this was, in fact, what was happening - as is claimed by the links I provided - then teachers would be exceedingly well-paid - better than 94% of all taxpayers in the US. But this isn't happening. Why? Maybe money (and VAST amounts of it) are being siphoned off for other things. Lots of vice-principals, lots of extra counselors and specialty cafeterias, lots of buying of fads of technology, lots of half-million-dollar-a-year union bosses, etc.

We already massively outspend the rest of the OECD on a per-student basis. And we pay well in the middle of the pack for the OECD. If we cannot educate children AND pay highly desirable salaries with over a quarter of a million per classroom - something is SERIOUSLY fucked up. All the other OECD countries seem to do a lot better in compensating their teachers whilst spending considerably less per student. The LAST thing we should do is simply throw more money at the problem. Because too much money is already wasted...

Federal gas tax pays for highways and the gas tax isn't enough to cover the cost, and hasn't been for years. Additionally, state gas taxes only pay for half of state and local roadway expenses.

The roadway users aren't paying for the cost of the roadways through fees -- they're covering more than half. There's absolutely no evidence that money intended for transportation is being spent outside of transportation, and at the state level in many states that would violate the state constitution.

We're underfunding transportation in America, both road and rail. The problem is that taxes, fees, and fares are not high enough, not that money is leaking into other areas of government.

Make the corporate tax rate ZERO. Nothing. Make it apply to corporations exclusively headquartered in the US, with at least 51% board members being US residents, and at least 51% of upper management (defined as vice presidents and above) being US residents. You'll see every major company in the world immediately relocate to the US - and most of their higher end employees either relocating or hiring new ones here. Massive gain in income tax (given that these folks tend to be in the top 1% of income earners, and they tend to pay nearly a 24% income tax rate).

My back-of-the-envelope calculations say we'd easily replace the $450 billion or so that we get in corporate income tax - especially since the top 1% already pay about $370 billion in income taxes alone. Double that number of people (which is about what would happen if you brought over most of the top 1000 companies worldwide), and you'll more than double the taxes paid by the top 1% - income tax, excise taxes, taxes on their employees, etc.

Encourage companies to move here and grow our economy, rather than penalizing success overseas. Become the ultimate tax haven, the best place to do business - and watch the economy roar.

when they go back up to where they were 4 months ago, i dont want a 25% increase on that.
 

The gas tax was still $0.18 4 months ago. In fact, it has been since 1993. If prices went back up you'd be paying something like $3.56 instead of $3.51 with my hypothetical 25% increase. If that breaks your budget, don't be one of the morons that increases the sales rate of low mileage vehicles every time the price of gasoline dips temporarily.

The reason you think the gas tax is enough is because we're not in a crisis yet. This isn't exactly what you wanted but perhaps you could google more than 2 minutes:

"Nationwide in 2010, state and local governments raised $37 billion in motor fuel taxes and $12 billion in tolls and non-fuel taxes, but spent $155 billion on highways.[3] In other words, highway user taxes and fees made up just 32 percent of state and local expenses on roads. The rest was financed out of general revenues, including federal aid."

http://taxfoundation.org/artic...

Here is some data from federal gas tax:

"During 2008 the fund required support of $8 billion from general revenue funds to cover a shortage in the fund. This shortage was due to lower gas consumption as a result of the recession and higher gas prices.[4] Further transfers of $7 billion and $19.5 billion were made in 2009 and 2010 respectively."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

Heads are not rolling. They are doing whatever the opposite of rolling is.

The top 10% have about 45% of all income. But they do pay 68.3% of all income taxes...

Your facts aren't correct. The top 10% pay 68.3% of all income taxes, but make 45.4% of all income. So it's 45% of the income paying 70% of the tax.

top 1% AGI is $388,905 (in 2011, the most recent year for which the IRS has final data, reference).

Generally, 'high six-figure income' is meant to mean higher than $500,000.00. So danbob999 is correct - one of the statements is a lie as high sic-figures automatically makes for a 1%er.

top 1% AGI is $388,905 (in 2011, the most recent year for which the IRS has final data, reference).

If he makes $300,000 and he considers that a high six figure, then he is not lying at all. Note that $100,000 is a "six figure income", and these days not at all high in the scheme of things. So his statement may just be drawing the distinction of someone making a multiple of "six figure" (three in this case) as opposed to barely breaking that antiquated inflation-devalued benchmark.

Your statement contains no facts. I can call you ugly all day long, but unless I substantiate it, it means nothing. Here are some facts for you: http://taxfoundation.org/artic... http://www.ntu.org/foundation/... I supose I am a racist too since that is typically the last resort of somebody that can't think.

top 1% AGI is $388,905 (in 2011, the most recent year for which the IRS has final data, reference).

No, Snotnose was claiming that the money just went into the general fund, so raising the gas tax wouldn't make more funds available for highways. I disagree with that assertion. 100% of our gas tax money DOES go into roads and bridges. It does NOT just get dumped into the general fund, "pissed away on politician's whims."

Now, it is entirely possible that he is specifically referring to California only. I don't really know the facts in CA, but a cursory Google search seems to indicate that only 64% of California's road costs are covered by the gas tax and tolls.

If the money was used as originally intended - to fund building and maintenance of the Interstate highway system - it would be brimming with cash. Instead, it's also being used for lots of other projects, like mass transit, bicycle paths, and landscaping for roads. About a quarter of the income from the HTF goes to non-highway projects.

What's your source for this?

I'm not seeing the numbers adding up. According to the Washington Post " In 2013, the trust fund disbursed $50 billion to states â" $43 billion for roads and $7 billion for mass transit, reports the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)."

But what was the revenue? This claims $30 billion from the gas tax in 2013.

That's a $13 billion shortfall.

State and local spending on roads is even worse.

You may want to do more research in this area. The 4th power rule for vehicle weight/damage to roads seems to indicate that cyclists cause negligible wear to the roads. Induced demand will explain why building more roads won't necessarily make traffic better. And the externalities of vehicle pollution, if you look into that, should be considered yet another subsidy to motor vehicle travel.

Plus, as fuel efficiency has gotten better and Americans have started driving less, the tax has naturally raised less revenue anyway.

That's only true if you compare to gasoline consumption during the economic bubble from 2003-2008. If you look over a longer period, gas tax revenue is the highest it's been since before 2003 in nominal dollars, and is roughly the average it's been from 1990-2014 in inflation-adjusted dollars. The tax is due for an increase to counter inflation, not because of the reasons TFS cites.

Federal gas tax revenue (fig 6-2) has never been enough to cover highway construction and maintenance expenses (figure 6-3). The gap has always been made up by state fuel taxes and other revenue.

I'm sorry.. I misquoted my source... It's the top 10% of tax payers pay half of the taxes.... http://taxfoundation.org/blog/... And the Bottom 1% usually pay negative taxes (they get refunds for money they didn't put in).

On the "framing of the question" idea, I've made some suggestions about how to make the tax system more fair, but I'm open to discussing the real impacts on people. I would argue that taxing WEALTH is not a good idea, nor is taxing capital gains. I'm not sure how you would even determine wealth, because just taking x% of cash on deposit won't work very well and asking folks to tell you how much they are worth is going to be as problematic as asking them to tell you how much they earn. Taxing capital gains really amounts to taxing the same money twice, or in some cases taxing paper gains which are due to inflation. Neither of these situations are good for economic activity.

Personally, I think a national sales tax makes sense and is pretty fair. You are taxed on what you spend, not what you earn or make on capital gains. I think if you put exceptions on necessities like food, medicine and possibly housing the impact on the less fortunate would be limited. The rich would pay more because they consume more and the poor wouldn't pay much at all because the bulk of their income is spent on the necessities.

Nothing will be perfect, but I think we can all agree what we have now is pretty broken and extremely complicated.

where we are not the highest corporate taxed country on earth.

Except we're not the highest. Chad and the UAE have the highest.

Also, to make up for the loss of revenue, we would have to raise the personal income tax. We could be like Germany with a 45% personal income tax, Norway with 47.2% or Japan at 50.84%.

Oh wait, you thought by lowering corporate taxes things would work themselves out. Now I see the problem.

A comparison of corporate and personal income tax rates

It's a race to the bottom, my friend. You don't out-compete countries with less than a few million inhabitants and no significant social programs.

You mean, like Canada? It has a 26% rate, compared the US's 40% rate. Yeah, third-world hell holes like Canada always whore around with those low numbers, right?

Other third-world hell-holes: Estonia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden and Australia. They have the five least burdensome taxes among the 34 OECD nations according to the Tax Foundation’s International Tax Competitiveness Index (pdf, rankings on page 5).

Canada ranks 24th. The United States ranks 32nd with an overall score of 44.6% (to Estonia's 100%), better than only Portugal and France.