Slashdot Mirror
Need a Receipt On Taxes? The Federal Tax Receipt
ndogg writes "The White House has opened up a tool that lets you see where your tax dollars are being spent. I put my numbers in and it showed that a little over a quarter goes towards defense and military spending (I'm not sure I'm getting my money's worth on that one), and a little under a quarter for health care." I'm sure readers (and think tanks of various stripes) will have some alternative narratives, too. For readers elsewhere; it's tax season here in the US.
...with them I buy civilization.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Uhm, exactly what were you expecting?
I guess the author must be referring to the program where the Army gives you a BMW M5 just for enlisting.
If anything, I think we are paying way way too much for the government itself (whitehouse + congress). Lots of waste there.
$666.00 in net interest for me, LOL. That is more than the amount of my taxes spent on Science/Tech + ICE + Natural Resources + Agriculture.
I also seem to be buying lots of bullets, or something else that goes BOOM!
"What luck for the rulers that men do not think." - Adolph Hitler
Don't be scared by these military whiners about the military budget. It is HUGE. MASSIVE. There are so many programs and projects that are not in the national security interest that it isn't funny. Don't think we can balance the budget without trimming defense and social programs. Sorry. It just won't happen.
Let me guess, this guy has some sort of political axe to grind and he is looking for way to try to justify tax cuts in areas he doesn't like.
FACTS ARE FACTS, these are numbers where money is going and where they are spent. While he can say that "welfare" should be renamed "money for cadillac queens" or that the "defense department" should be renamed "military industrial complex" it doesn't change where the money is going or what is is actually being spent for.
(Not unless you're Jon Kyl and claim on the senate floor that Planned Parenthood spends 90% of its money on abortion counseling. The real amount is 3%. But why pick on our elected Senators? You could be one of the many Americans who believe that NASA takes up 20% of the federal budget. The real amount is less than 1%).
"NSF and research" = "Railroad retirement and income security"
"Weapon R&D" = 17x"NSF and research"
Something is seriously wrong with our priorities.
So which department does the stupid ass "War on Drugs" fall under? You know, spending massive amounts of money(and wasting fuel and polluting the environment) flying around in helicopters burning naturally occurring plants, throwing people in jail(which costs about $50k/year/head and prevents them from contributing to society) etc etc etc.
As a tax payer, I'm pissed at this stupid ass "war". You want to reduce spending and increase revenues? Legalize and tax marijuana.
Monstar L
The defense numbers seem suspiciously low even after I factor for the fact that they don't include veterans benefits or the interest on defense spending in the defense category.
https://www.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom
The next step is to take the power of tax distribution away from Congress and put it in the hands of the people. Let the public decide what they want to fund, and we'll eliminate a rather large amount of pork. (Don't read too much into this - this is a high level idea and the devil is in the details, as always).
Remember, you can't look dignified when your having fun! Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive
So what is this...I am suppose to feel better about my income being stolen by people with guns?
This will be a supremely unpopular stance among a large section here - but taxes are one of the best bargains in any marketplace.
Taxes buy infrastructure. The kind of infrastructure that allows us all to live as kings used to, and more. The kind of infrastructure without which the work of countless geniuses of all stripes would be impossible. The kind of tools and infrastructure that raises the average lifespan across the world to many times what it was before taxes were common.
Taxes buy culture. Education systems may not be ideal - but they advance the average human state in ways that it is hard to quantify in everyday terms. Simply being able to have conversations and do business across large nations like the US is one small bit. A limited but important bit of shared history, and the seeds of knowledge that sprout in countless little ways. They can certainly always be better - but the return is enormous on what we have so far, just by allowing what we have.
From tools, to access to shared resources, to even the ability to shape the system you live in - taxes buy a lot more than a simple minarchy would allow.
Taxes are the resources of the people paying for the shared needs of the people. They are in effect, allowing everyone to take advantage of economies of scale when used correctly (see: most sane nations' use of healthcare money), and often stand as an irreplaceable method of getting shared needs met.
What's surprising is how often people will directly vote to have the rich pay less taxes, and the poor pay more - that part never made sense to me, given how much shared sacrifice already goes into providing people with the tools to become rich - it just doesn't seem like they need more protection all the time.
But that's part of taxes also - they will be spent as the people's representatives allow them to be spent. Keep electing people and allowing them to be bribed constantly with no checks in place to stop the rising corruption on all sides, and you will keep getting taxes wasted - wasted by the system you allow to grow more stagnant.
Taxes aren't perfect - but they are still a bargain compared to warlords and tycoons ruling everything in the vacuum of a world without any collective funding system.
Ryan Fenton
The vast majority for me is defense and health care. Even though I am exempt from medicare taxes, 25% goes to that category. Anyone who thinks we don't need health care reform is crazy!
Second, if we stop funding health care people die. If we stop funding defense, what happens? Seriously. If the defense budget is cut in half, in what ways is my life or way of life threatened? I can intellectually measure the value ofnthe rest of my tax dollars in the other categories, but, for defense, it's hard to imagine what I get after spending as much per capita as, say, Japan, on defense.
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
or that you haven't been taking your meds again?
If we cut that back to 1/6th of our spending on military, we'd still be the top spender in the world.
If we cut 90%, we'd be the world's second-highest spender.
If we cut back 95%, we'd be 10th.
That's funny - the White House tool indicates that those much-praised $1-a-Year Salary Billionaire CEO's - Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, etc. - aren't contributing to any of the programs and services!
If you're not careful, like ndogg, you'll end up focusing on the percentages listed for each group paid for by the income tax (and not payroll taxes) and conclude (incorrectly) that 25% of taxes paid go to defense. Of course that's not true, but it's easy to be fooled by the page. Look again at the page. They only show percentages for those items paid for by income tax as a percentage of income tax. If one includes social security spending and medicare spending, then military as a percentage of total taxes is much smaller. You're not supposed to pay attention to social security spending and medicare spending.
That page is meant to fool you.
Want's worse -- it's your own government trying to fool you.
Taxes buy culture. Education systems may not be ideal - but they advance the average human state in ways that it is hard to quantify in everyday terms.
Whoa there. Taxes do *NOT* buy "culture". Or education. At least not at the federal level.
There are plenty of museums and theaters that would all do just fine without federal taxes. At the federal level spending on education is worse than a waste of money, because you are giving almost nothing to the actual process of education, just bureaucracy that mandates how education has to be done - and as we have seen plainly now, adding money into that system simply produces dumber kids out the other side.
Local taxes for those things make a lot of sense, because they are collected close to where they will be used and therefore there is a great deal of oversight that can be done. Sending any money to washing leads you with very uncertain results out the other side, except you know a lot of money goes in with worse results year on year out the other end.
Infrastructure is great. That's not what our taxes are doing; therefore currently much of our taxes are a waste of money.
You totally misunderstand the feeling on taxes among fiscal conservatives, they want to see money collected spent wisely and that simply almost never happens at a federal level.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You, and anyone else who likes paying taxes, are welcome to pay more. Here's the page that tells you how.
If you want to advocate for higher taxes, start by going to that page, following the instructions, and sending the government a check. Then come back and talk to us about paying higher taxes.
Have you been paying attention? 'The Public' seems to be getting dumber every year. I think it's officially known as the Homer Simpson Syndrome.
Looking at it 70%+ of the budget is defense, medicare, and SSI. A lot of people are saying cut defense it does nothing for us, I like to play devil's advocate to that. Most of our biggest technological advances have been from military research and the medical advances made during times of war are undeniable and have saved countless lives now. Not only is there a lot of research done in defense, the US pretty much keeps the whole world sane, which is a big and expensive responsibility. Look at how helpless NATO is without the US running the show at helping the oppressed Libyans for instance. Say what you want, but lack of strong American military presence has lead to two world wars. Personally I'm a fan of getting rid of handouts, spend it all on infrastructure, research, and defense.
If they're genuinely only making $1 a year then there's nothing wrong with that. The reality though is that they aren't making only $1 a year, they're drawing that as a salary typically. Even if they weren't being paid in shares, they've all got huge investment portfolios which do end up getting taxed.
I don't like paying taxes, because I don't like paying for everyone else's unearned security. Out of my own pocket, I have saved a six months emergency fund in the bank that could sustain my family for six months should I lose my job. But apparently I'm the only one left who actually saves for a rainy day, because all my medicare taxes go to medicare, and then on top of that an additional 24.3% of my general taxes go to healthcare (again, much of that amount medicare and medicaid), another 21.9% goes to job and family security (unemployment, housing, foodstamps, unearned income credit, etc), and another 5% goes to education and job training. So 100% of my medicare taxes, plus 46.2% of my general taxes go to pay for people who won't provide for themselves and won't save for their own security and/or made poor decisions.
And don't even get me started on social security... I pay through the nose for a system that won't be there when I retire (because it is a ponzi scheme) because a bunch of entitled baby boomers didn't bother to save anything for retirement and are going to bankrupt the whole thing. I actually save for my own retirement (imagine that), but it's pretty hard to get a lot together for that when the government takes almost 13% of my income by force to pay for the retirement of those who didn't bother to prepare for it.
And the worst part of it all? The government has no legal right to fund anything on the list I just mentioned, as none of those things are in the constitution. The military spending is one of the only things on that tax receipt that is actually constitutional (not saying it can't be cut, because it probably should be, but I think we should start with the unconstitutional programs that reward irresponsibility and punish the responsible).
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
Maybe my math is wrong, but the percentages don't add up to 100%. You do the math...
National Defense
26.30%
Health Care
24.30%
Job and Family Security
21.90%
Education and Job Training
4.80%
Veterans Benefits
4.10%
Natural Resources, Energy and Environment
2.10%
International Affairs
1.70%
Science, Space, and Technology Programs
1.20%
Immigration, Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice
2.00%
Agriculture
8.00%
Community, Area, and Regional Development
0.50%
Response to Natural Disasters
0.40%
Additional Government Programs
2.40%
Remember that we live in a society where nothing is ever good enough. If those same CEO's made millions a year in salary, everyone would complain that they make too much, if they make $1, they aren't being taxed enough. It would appear we need to make CEO's of the some of most successful companies in the world work for free.
One quarter goes to the Military-Industrial Complex. Another quarter goes to the Medical-Industrial Complex. Countless other lesser special interests getting their little cuts of the action as well.
Personally, I'm still rather irritated that a significant portion of my taxes went towards 'health care', and yet I still have zero coverage. I realize that this particular discussion has been beaten to death around here, so don't feel like you have to reply. I just want to complain about it somewhere.
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
In other countries, a quarter of their taxes goes to health care, but then they actually get health care for that! It's very sad that in the US, you can pay just as much, yet that only covers old people and poor people and politicians.
I've lived in 3 countries -- UK, Canada, and USA -- and the health care in UK and Canada is a billion times better than in the US. The doctors here in the US spend about half their energy finding funding for whatever care they want to provide, and people here routinely walk around sick and with untreated wounds and diseases. Even people who "have insurance." And people who live on the Canadian or Mexican border cross the border to get health care or buy pharmaceuticals routinely. It's just amazingly sad.
Probably a high chance for a missnomer on that one - see who gets the money, for what purpose, result and real cost on that game.
But who cares about names and meaning these days...
Thanks a lot asshole. I'm at work and my boss saw it. Then he asked if I wanted to hang out and have a few beers!!!!
Also, all you Amish farmers can STFU about barn-raising until I see Amos over there hoist one up by himself.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
How would you know? Did you serve? No?
Office people.
American worldwide military base network, ability to project power anywhere in the world in matter of days, need to defend US interests across the globe, and requirement to be able to simultaneously encage in several fronts has its costs. Old European imperialistic nations didn't give up the foreign lands just because they suddenly felt generous and wanted to give freedom to these countries. It was in big part also a fiscal decision and sooner US realizes that the sooner the budget will be balanced.
Problem is that you cannot cut military spending without giving up the imperialistic approach towards the rest of the world. Having a weak military with same worldwide objectives in place will cost more as more conflicts would arise.
We're stuck paying made-in-the-USA prices. The second spender obviously gets made-in-China prices. The one nice thing here is that we're employing our own people; it must suck to be a country that has to buy from elsewhere.
We also tend to include non-military expenses in our "military" budget. This includes medical research, biofuel research, solar power research, self-driving car research, military healthcare and retirement benefits, and congressionally mandated bases that the military doesn't want.
I think it is kind of nice to have the military researching prosthetic limbs, brain injury, rehydratable blood substitutes, and bandages treated with chemicals that stop bleeding. It doesn't do anything nice for the budget of course.
If we cut back to Chinese funding levels, we won't get anywhere near the same results as they get. This is especially true if you count all the extras that we include in our "military" budget.
There is a reason why they don't take a salary. Taxes. They avoid a good number of taxes by not taking a salary. All those regressive Payroll taxes (SS, Unemployment, Medicare ... ) are simply avoided, allowing a greater percentage of wealth to be transferred. Income taxes are regressive, because the rich avoid them all together. You can tax the wealthy all you want, they will avoid those taxes every legal, and semilegal way they can. The poor and middle class do not have that option.
I propose a "transaction", where any transfer of $ gets taxed be it for goods, services, stock options, buying or selling. It would eliminate the Dutch Sandwitch tax avoidance game the big corporations play. Remember, all taxes are regressive, so let those who it hurt the most decide the tax rate, and pass a balanced budget amendment.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The US government spends more than it earns, so for every dollar of tax you pay, the government spends something substantially more than one dollar, with the difference being borrowed and compounded until some future generation pays it back, or the debt (and everyone's savings) are eroded by printing more money and then paid back. To be accurate, the calculator should add to substantially more than 100%.
Personally, I think we should cut it more than that. We should do away with our standing army and replace it with a citizen's army. Every able body citizen should go through boot camp, then basically be in something like the National Guard.
I think this would also have positive benefits besides saving money and keeping us from killing millions of brown people who have done nothing to us besides having the bad luck of having our resources in their country.
Everyone being in the National Guard would mean that effectively everyone is a first responder (I would include first aid training and training in dealing with natural disaster as part of boot camp).
It makes me feel uneasy when I see people cheering "taxes" as a concept. I'm pretty sure taxes have existed independently of nice things like democracy, education, infrastructure, justice, etc. People have been paying taxes for thousands of years without it somehow causing Western democracy to spontaneously break out.
Taxes don't automatically create a nice society. Correlation != Causation.
A healthier view would be to see them as a necessary evil. Inherently dangerous due to their confiscatory and mandatory nature. One minute you have a nice functioning democracy, and the next you have all the political parties taxing people they don't like and funding people they do.
That's actually the best argument for a "flat" tax, come to think of it. Not man-hours saved or loopholes closed, but the reduced possibility of taxes being used as a weapon.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
You are being incredibly obtuse. I for one would wish that my state (Illinois) would raise the taxes so that we can continue funding necessary public needs like education. I'm not rich. I'm single. I work in help desk. I drive a used Honda. But I'm more than happy to contribute more. I recognize the role that government plays in our modern society.
I would like to be able to voice my opinion on how my tax dollars are spent. Suppose that I oppose the money being spent on defense and would rather my tax revenue went towards space research - I feel that I should have an option to divert some of my taxes, at least a part above the prescribed percentage, towards scientific R&D rather than programs that I don't agree with, such as subsidizing war. Not only would I feel better paying higher tax rate were I given the option to choose the recipient, I (we) could voice my (our) political preferences based on what we prefer to fund and what I (we) don't.
Id like the rich to actually pay a reasonable amount rather than forcing the middle and lower classes to carry them with their labor, effort and intelligence and also forcing them to pay taxes that cut into the funds they need for their families.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
No income tax. No government.
It's a total shithole but what do you expect from a Libertarian paradise.
By the way, you aren't 70 and don't have cancer YET...
So you really don't know how much the rest of us are going to have to pay to support you in your dying years.
but don't let that stop you from ranting like a self important douche.
Where is the interest paid on debt?
Problem is that you cannot cut military spending without giving up the imperialistic approach towards the rest of the world. Having a weak military with same worldwide objectives in place will cost more as more conflicts would arise.
Uh, you do realise that the US starts most of the wars. Not counting our slaughter of the indigenous population, we have been in over 200 wars and this does not count our support of strongmen and dictators. I for one, think the world would be a more peaceful place if the US concentrated on defending its own land and stayed out of other peoples lands.
Just as long as I get to control who and where every single of my dollars go. First item on the board: you're not getting a single of my pennies, not even indirectly.
See how that works? The reason that I don't pay more than my required share is free-loaders like you, who are happy to take everyone's money, but aren't willing to contribute.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I don't think you understand how taxes work. If you're given stock directly as compensation, you're taxed on the value as regular income. If you have a stock option to buy stock for cheap, you're taxed on the difference between purchase price and market price as regular income. Once you get the stock and hold it for over a year and sell it then yes, you pay capital gains rates on the growth, but you'd do that if you just went out and bought the stock directly.
Yes, they pay less taxes by not taking a cash salary. They also make less money. If the salary they would have made is shifted into stock, this is still taxed, unless they're flat-out lying to the IRS. The tax code is designed to catch shenanigans like this, and more often than not it's pretty good at it.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
The summary completely fails to mention that the "income tax" breakout occurs after Social Security and Medicare taxes are already broken out. Using the 50k income, married w/one child example from the linked calculator, I get $4,085 of total federal tax, of which $3,100 (75.8%) is Social Security, $725 is Medicare/Medicaid (17.7%), and only $260 (6.3%) is income tax. (26.3% of that is national defense, which results in a tax liability of $68.38 or 1.6%, total.) While the summary is poor, this does bring up an important point. Any discussion of budget cuts that do not affect SS or Medicare is pretty much political theater.
I cant believe you guys pay so much in interest, its like your politicians are as dumb as the majority of your people. No offense to more educated people who actually read slashdot of course.
"I would like to cancel my membership."
This is without even mentioning that other countries will eventually get ahead because they don't have to carry that excess baggage. It seems to me that the US is suffering from the same problems that the Soviet Union had right before it collapsed: a huge military that was sucking money out of more important things. The US is a federation of powerful states too, and when money runs out, it can become really messy. Out of real national security, I think it is important for the US to scale down military costs to at least 15% of the actual 30%.
Will I see tax on the receipt?
That site makes it look like the government only spends 1 dollar for every dollar it receives in taxes.
"a little over a quarter goes towards defense and military spending (I'm not sure I'm getting my money's worth on that one)" ....
Living in a rich, fat target? Yes. Got enemies? Yes. Been invaded by a foreign nation lately? No.
That's why for you it's a bargain. You get thousands of dollars of benefits for hundreds of dollars of "investment."
If you get more back from the government than you put in, someone is getting less than they put in. How is that a bargain for them?
That's how class warfare works. As long as the "poor" think they're entitled to the wealth of the "rich" we'll continue hearing silly arguments about what a bargain it is to pay taxes and get so much in return.
If people actually had to pay for what they consumed, they'd probably try harder to make sure money isn't being wasted. Unfortunately, we have too many people who don't mind consuming more than is necessary because they aren't paying for it.
Work Safe Porn
They have income other then that $1. That's how they can do the $1 thing.
In fact, you will find that most families up to 20k a year income will not contribute to any program either. But the $1 is not the taxable income those CEOs are reporting.
... don't you get it?
If they skip out on taxes and you pay normal or higher taxes, that makes you "more equal" than them. Right?
No, we need to make them pay taxes on their real income rather than their reported salary.
The percentages attributed to both 'Health Care' and 'Job and Family Security' are misleading. The published percentages fail to reflect $452 billion of Medicare for the former and $571 billion of Social Security for the latter. The excuse that they would offer if anyone could call them on this would be the barely plausible 'FICA is not income tax.' These are the games we play.
Others, however, aren't playing. The worlds creditors are going to dump US Treasuries when they finally become convinced that reigning in the deficit is politically infeasible for the US. Greece is paying >13% interest to roll over its debt. When that happens to the US the pie chart at the bottom of the page will have one overwhelming slice called 'servicing the debt' and this house of paper will finally fall.
We are going to cut spending whether we do it ourselves or we are forced to by the Chinese. You may attribute this simple reality to the rich, the military, capitalism, big oil, Israel, the tooth-fairy or anyone else you've been trained to hate; it is still going to happen.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
...or the debt (and everyone's savings) are eroded by printing more money and then paid back.
This is something that had been quite puzzling to me.
It seems quite clear to me that, with expenditures roughly twice revenues, the USA's current level of deficit spending is unsustainable: if nothing is changed, there will eventually be a major collapse of the US currency (i.e. a loaf of bread costs hundreds of US dollars). And there are some obvious solutions:
So if the solution is so obvious and, compared to a lot of problems in the world, easy - why hasn't Obama (and congress) just solved it?
And what I eventually realized is that the problem isn't being solved because the American people, with a few rare exceptions, don't actually want the problem solved: given the choice between a major collapse of the US dollar or some combination of raising taxes on the upper class, cutting military spending and making the US health care system more efficient, the American people prefer a currency collapse.
But why? Why are the American people, by and large, in favor of economic policies that will result in a major collapse or their currency. In a word, debt. Between mortgages on million dollar homes, car payments on new luxury SUVs, credit card debt on frivolous luxury items that can easily reach tens of thousands of dollars for a single individual and employment prospects with only a faint hope of paying off that debt after decades of grim pointless slavery to some ruthless corporation - for a large fraction of Americans, their one hope of freedom from corporate debt slavery is a US currency collapse that wipes the slate clean. And for the few American fat cats at the top who have gotten rich off a combination of tax breaks, the military industrial complex, and healthcare inefficiencies - they can hire accountants to work full time on sheltering their massive assets from the US currency collapse.
So, yes, a US currency collapse is coming sometime in the next decade or two and yes, the American people know it - but (and here's the key insight that resolves my puzzlement) ultimately a US currency collapse is what most of the American people want.
If you actually take the time to expand the categories you'll see that a few lines items could easily be moved around
Federal military and civilian employee retirement and disability 4.6%
This is listed under health care, but a major portion of it could be in the Military personnel salaries and benefits.
The line item for Veterans Benefits 4.1%
could also just as easily have been a sub-paragraph of the Military budget.
So if you wanted to read it differently, Health Care would be at 19.7% and Nation Defense would be at 35%
Now that's more like an American Government!
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report is missing in all these budget talks. There is no debt
http://cafr1.com/
high quality reasonable price free shi pping accept pay pal, you can order all kind of things you want, believe me , trust me . www.happyshopping100.com -=
Is the Iraq war listed under "National Defense" or "International Affairs" ?
if it's included in the 1.7% International Affairs, then what is pushing National Defense to 26.3% ?
Also, Defense is actually 30.4% because Veterans don't just fall out of the sky.
Nothing in this thresd, until now, has talked about paying MORE taxes. The premise is that one should not mind paying a fair share.
Here's how things really break down:
26.3% on National Defense.
Before you start crying, remember this funds the military pension system. No retired vets don't have an independent pension fund like other federal employees. Expect this to stay high after the troops come home from Afghanistan. You'll see why in a minute.
We purchase a lot with our military: 1. Freedom of Navigation. 2. "Show the flag" operations (parking a carrier battle group off someone's coast) has a huge impact on geopolitics. We opened Japan with Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet. 3. Humanitarian relief - The US military has more airlift, sea lift, and medical personnel under its command than the entirety of several modern nations, and this capability is assumed by our allies and organizations like the UN and NATO. All of this spending creates and maintains millions of high paying jobs around the nation. Ask anyone in California who went though the draw down in the early 90s how much the Bush/Clinton Peace Dividend impacted this state's economy.
See why we spend so much on our military? In a single department we stimulate the economy (with war), create (war) jobs, and get generate good will for our country. I think you'll find bi-partisan support for this going at least as far back as Woodrow Wilson.
Health Care, Job and Family Security, and Education and Job Training are all designed to reshape the United States. This is the Great Society/Welfare State, and the total percentage is 51%. Are we getting our money's worth? Anyone who grew up watching 20/20 would disagree.
Entitlement spending. Add Social Security (7%), Medicate (about 3%), Health Care (24.3%), Veterans Benefits (4.1%) and you get 45.8% of all payroll taxes. I'm probably leaving a few things out. Oh Defense spending is 26% of income taxes or 10% of all payroll taxes, and we have the most powerful and the most capable military on Earth.
Science, Space, and Technology is 1.2%. Health Research and Food Safety is 1.5%. Disease Control is 1%. So hard science that is largely free of politics is 3.7%. I don't expect this to change. Even corporations are moving research and development overseas.
Agriculture .8% Why we're pretending that small farmers still exist is beyond me. Last time I checked the was the growing Farmers Market movement, not federal subsidy that was turning the tide on GM Foods and the food industry that's feeding us processed bone meal as cheap chicken patties. Watch Jamie Oliver's show on ABC or Hulu for proof. If anything, the mega corps that run most of the nation are the ones collecting most of this subsidy as the independent farmers either quit, sold out, or were forced out when I was in Jr High.
Response to Natural Disasters - in no way does this cover what we spend on clean up. Most of what we spend to rebuild people's homes on flood plains comes from "emergency spending." It comes from debt. Ignore this figure.
Net interest. This is what we pay on all non-social security public debt. Those federal Savings Bonds you got when you were 7? Yeah this is the cost. We're also paying interest on loans we obtained from other countries to pay for things we want but can't afford. Right now that's the wars in the middle east and baby boomer entitlements. The first we can retard or limit, but not without impacting millions of private sector jobs. The latter we're powerless to change as the gray and blue haired citizens are the largest voting block and they wants what they were promised not matter the long term cost.
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
We could give the prisons to Wizards of the Coast!
They could ensure each prison truck contains 11 common prisoners, 3 uncommon prisoners, and a rare convict. Each building has no more than 4 of any type of prisoner, but only one of certain restricted types. The death row prisoners are Banned and held separately in a building with golden-hued borders.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Remember, Regan borrowed 450 billion dollars, at 10% interest rate. It was just after Carter era inflation. Obama was borrowing at 2% and 2.5% when the economy was at the bottom. He could borrow easily three to four times what Regan borrowed at the same interest load. Given the growth in the size of the economy and the deficit is not as big as the Republicans and Tea partiers make it out to be. Also they are not really deficit hawks, they blew up the deficit every time they had their hand in the till.
We are able to do this because, USA is still the world's reserve currency, one bond that has never ever defaulted. If tea partiers manage to spook the world about the credit rating of US Treasury Bonds, US would become a third world country. The Tea party crowd does not care. All they want is their in charge so that all the government expenses,never mind the deficits, happen according to their political objectives.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If 1/4 is going to defense then that's great in my book. But then I'm a vet and don't feel we are putting enough into some areas of defense. I'm less happy with some of the other places it's going. NPR, Planned Parenthood and the UN could all be axed and it wouldn't hurt my feelings /at all/.
Govt collected 1.1 Trillion in individual income taxes, another 0.7 trillion in social security and medicare taxes. Corporate income tax was hardly 0.4 trillion dollars. The 0.5 trillion dollar current year deficit is mostly due to the wars. So what do we do? Cut education, arts, infrastructure and give six thousand dollars to 80 year old geezers and ask them to buy private health insurance with that.
Where are the bond vigilantes? If the currency is going to collapse, people like George Soros would short dollar like anything to make a killing. They are all shorting the yen and euro.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"For readers elsewhere; it's tax season here in the US."
Cool story, bro.
I used the tax spending site. And I added my expenses on private medical insurance to my tax expenses on healthcare. That's 54% of my combined total tax and health insurance spending, and 12% of my income. If I include my employer's expenses on my health insurance (that could otherwise be paid directly to me), that's over 18% of my income. I am several years past the median life expectancy and I've collected as much in health insurance benefits over my lifetime as I pay in a year.
I know I'll be spending a lot more as I get older, especially for the last several years where I'm basically dying. I'd just rather spend that close to 20% of my income directly on Medicare in my taxes. Medicare costs less per care than private insurance. The insurance cartel's gouging and stingy approvals, plus its large profits, atop a mountain of waste, are sucking money from me that will never go to my health, or to anyone else's health other than the insurance corp's shareholders.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are working as hard as they can to destroy Medicare and Medicaid, and force all of our health expenses to funnel through the private insurance skimmer. The worst part of the Healthcare Reform they manipulated into a shadow of what was needed is what they are trying to convert the whole thing into.
Medicare for all. Like the rest of the civilized world. Or bust. Literally.
--
make install -not war
It speaks of the things limit the power of a government. Things that a government CAN NOT do to it's citizens... and the very basics that it provides to it's people.
It doesn't need to have specifics like health care, planned parenthood, internet regulation, etc... BECAUSE they are things the government would be providing... they're not to be included.
NOW... the next brilliant thing to grace those pages, is the ability to AMEND the constitution. Nothing is perfect, and mistakes happen... times change, and the founders knew that... it can be changed at any time to provide for our modern times... BUT, it rarely is. Why? Think about it. Wait for the epiphany to set in.
That old document was extremely successful at limiting the power of government from over-extending itself and evolving into a tyranny. It worked... BUT, it's being challenged daily by our president, and many of the powers that be. It's sickening, to say the least.
Like it or not: The USA is/was the last place on earth with such a document, and was the most successful country in our times to date.
Not anymore... and it's not because of the limiting of government, and how amazingly free this country is. Ha.
Other countries get to spend less because the U.S. spends more. But you can't just look at total money spent; you have to look at it as a % of GDP at least.
We could spend less certainly but at least defense spending is something the Constitution states that the government must spend money on.
only 25% is foreign owned, the rest is domestically owned debt.
"I put my numbers in and it showed that a little over a quarter goes towards defense and military spending (I'm not sure I'm getting my money's worth on that one), and a little under a quarter for health care."
I picked the default distribution for 80k income with 2 kids, fairly typical.
$4960 for Social Security
$1160 for Medicare
$3863 for everything else, incl 1015 for Defense, 938 for Health Care, 846 for Job and Family Security, and everything else under $200.
So out of approx $10k, this makes it easy:
49% for SS
11% for Medicare
38% for everything else.
I'm not sure how that calculates out to "25% for military, 25% for health care" unless you're (ignorantly) only looking at the proportion of your INCOME tax and ignoring the 50% bite of SS, and 11% of medicare.
Considering SS is a Ponzi scheme that I doubt I'll ever see my 'contribution' (LOL), and that of the "Health Care, 846 for Job and Family Security" maybe $100 contribute to the general good, the rest are all intended as income-redistributive.
So essentially of the 10k tax burden, the summarizer sees 25% 'wasted' on military. I see 10% spent on military (which is, indeed, probably too high), and 49%+11%+20%=80% as pretty much taken from my pocket to give to people that either couldn't control their reproductive organs, or otherwise make the right choices at various life-crossroads.
-Styopa
EVERYONE should read the Grace Commission report - the Government PUBLICLY ADMITTED that 100% of income tax collected goes to paying the INTEREST on the national debt! Them now trying to tell us anything is is pure BS lies - surprise the government lying to us YET again.
"100% of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal Debt ... all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services taxpayers expect from government."
-Grace Commission report submitted to President Ronald Reagan - January 15, 1984
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grace_Commission
http://www.scribd.com/doc/32595026/Grace-Commission-Report-full
http://thetruthnews.info/GraceCommissionReport.pdf
http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs9044/
http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs9044/m1/1/high_res_d/IP0281G.pdf
The Truth is a Virus!!!
where is the section that shows how much is being squandered giving subsidies to giant corporations?
Please, enlighten the world, what in your estimation constitutes a 'reasonable amount'? Please.
Should it be percentage of their total wealth?
Should it be percentage of their earnings?
Is, say, 49% good enough?
Is it supposed to be 79%?
Is it 99%?
Do you know how much you pay today if you earn more than 500Kin Connecticut today? With 35% federal, 6.5% state (and the governor wants to push it up by a few points), FICA is really irrelevant then, because it's capped at first 100K, but 2.9% Medicare tax is applied on the ENTIRE amount. This is only the income taxes, can you do the addition?
Add to this the existing gas and other consumption taxes, levies and excise taxes, import and property taxes, you get to over 50%. The serfs of the past paid 25% to their lords. Why are people today being treated worse than serfs? Why do people today have to have their taxes cut in half at least to get to the level of serfs?
What is fair? Why should anybody pay any taxes based on income rather than on consumption? After all, money that is earned but not spent is reinvested, shouldn't investment be rewarded rather than consumption? Of-course it should, but not in an economy based on government subsidized spending through borrowed and printed money, gov't doesn't want savings - it wants spending, thus it subsidizes spending in various asset classes and creates bubbles in them, all this while printing money so that it doesn't have to pay its debts back in real money but in printed funny money (and this adds an additional inflation tax on your entire US dollar denominated holdings).
Real question is: who in their right mind is still paying taxes in USA and why should they do that at all? I think everybody should stop paying income taxes yesterday.
You can't handle the truth.
His goal isn't to be true to his ideals -- his goal is to force everybody else to be true to his ideals.
Let's see... the taxes are going to go for something like this:
Principal: 2% Interest 98%.
I suppose I could calculate what it is, by the GBO's estimate of when things go bust. But I'm not going to bother.
At this point, our taxes go entirely to payment on the debt. Everything else is purchased on further debt.
Honestly, I can't call that a bargain. If I were living on credit cards the way our government is, I wouldn't call that a bargain either.
So, you would like the top 1% to pay over 35% of all federal income tax collected? Or maybe you think the top 5% should pay over 50% of all federal income tax collected?
Of course, the fact is they already do. So, exactly what do you consider a "reasonable" amount?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The serfs of the past paid 25% to their lords. Why are people today being treated worse than serfs? Why do people today have to have their taxes cut in half at least to get to the level of serfs?
Seriously? "Why don't we have it as good as serfs" is what you're going to go with?
it's tax season here in the US.
... there's a limit of one tax collector per licensed hunter.
Have gnu, will travel.
Seriously.
More seriously - I am against all income taxes, now that's for sure, did you read my comment?
You can't handle the truth.
QUOTE: " a little over a quarter goes towards defense and military spending (I'm not sure I'm getting my money's worth on that one),"
/asshat OP
Yeah, freedom is WAY overrated.
10 MD
The 4.8% on education is just the federal contribution. The majority of education spending is by state and local agencies -- mostly through property taxes. It's questionable how useful the federal government's spending is. They can't adjust to the changing needs in local schools. The Department of Education was created in 1979, and I don't think the US education system is better since its founding. It is mainly collecting stats, and enforcing federal privacy and civil rights education laws (Title IX, etc). No Child Left Behind and student loan guarantees are the only direct influence they have, and I'll leave it to others to debate the usefulness of No Child Left Behind.
Environmental protection regulation and enforcement targeted at environmental degradation which has long-term consequences (e.g. destruction of eco-systems which has consequences measured in multiple thousands of years, nuclear power regulation - same thing, ozone layer destruction, global warming, which has a several hundred year inertia in terms of slowing it, stopping it.) Now of course democratic governments are doing a terrible job of regulating these things anyway, mostly because: the problems are:
a. hard to understand, hard to believe in without being a scientific expert who has studied them,
b. are out of sight out of mind - they are your grandchildrens' problem not yours,
d. and the fixes are really disruptive to/a drag on the free market status quo economy.
e. Large free market corporations pour massive funds into de-educating and misinforming people about these issues, which successfully causes the election of representatives who do the opposite of effectively regulating these issues.
Free markets have amply demonstrated, by being against all forms of environmental regulation, that they would be much worse than governments at managing prevention of and solutions to these problems.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I like how the categorized military pensions under the social services tab and not the defense spending tab.
well shit, I believe everything the government says.
If it were just a dollar game, why not cut it 100%?
Well its not. The marching orders were to prepare to fight 2 wars. The assumption was something in the Middle East and Korea. The ability to fight two wars would help insure that North Korea wouldn't attack while we had our eye on a different ball. Well we are essentially in two wars - well 2.5 and still need enough muscle to keep North Korea in check. The logistics of that is staggering. I read a story that said moving a gallon of gasoline to the further outpost in Afghanistan is something like $200 (paying for protect, losses etc.) Very expensive wars to boot.
Forgetting about new weapon programs, some would suggest that are military is at a breaking point. The pace at which they are using up equipment is out stripping the funding to replace it.
I would hope that before someone would willy-nilly cut defense spending that they _FIRST_ spend the time and effort to shore up the diplomatic efforts. We need to decide things like - how far we will back Isreal and where do we draw lines on countries that abuse its citizen and what we are willing to do for oil. Throw in Tawan and S Korea as critical trading partners. Get all that solved and we won't need a big military.
With these three unique numbers the government could associate your tax return with your IP address.
Well played. That's one of the best analogies I've seen in a while.
How about all of the tax breaks you can get by dumping money into investments and retirement funds? How is it that GE didn't have to pay *any* taxes? Did you know we had a top tax bracket around 90% in this country? It was a way to prevent management from lavishing themselves with bank-breaking salaries. Guess what's happening now? Companies in the red are still throwing cash at the executives.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
That's a completely illogical argument because individual actions cannot solve collective problems. Installing a catalytic converter on your own car won't improve the air you breathe in the slightest, whereas requiring everybody to do so (including yourself) causes a huge improvement. The two are not the same, so equating them doesn't work.
GE, as in 'Government Electric'? :)
I already made my point clear - I am against government owning any assets, printing money, borrowing, taxing income, subsidizing any businesses or individuals, regulating any businesses and basically doing anything beyond minimum military and justice system (and I am now convinced they can't do that right either.)
As to having the top rate at over 90% (I believe it was 94% at some point), that does not change this simple fact: the actual effective taxes collected have always staid between 18% and 20%, which indicates that it is the real rate anybody is ever paying, and it's because changes of tax codes cause changes in behavior.
However I was specifically talking about personal income taxes, which in USA are unacceptably high (they should be 0%). But I will reiterate my position: all income taxes and payroll taxes and all corporate income taxes must be 0%, I really hope I am clear on my point. My point is that government must never be allowed to grow based on income but only based on ratio of consumption that the economy is involved in, because during bad times consumption must subside and give place to increases in savings and production.
But yes, I am against all government and corporate ties, there must be none.
You can't handle the truth.
Consumption taxes always unfairly hurt the poor. Contrary to the belief of many, wealthy people only consume marginally more than poor people. This is evident by the fact they get rich in the first place. They save money, invest it, etc. They may spend on higher quality goods, but in the end it doesn't make up for the massive salaries they have. Consumption tax would just end up making rich people richer unless you were to give huge refunds to poor people or otherwise subsidize their purchases for essential items. I believe FairTax is about that.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
At one point in the US history the rich paid 90 percent income tax, and still lived lavish lifestyles like gods. It doesn't matter if they pay 50 percent of all income tax. The disparity in wealth is what matters. having 10 percent of the people with 95 percent of the money, OF COURSE they pay all the taxes. You could argue a poor person today lives better than a poor person 100 years ago, so we all are getting richer. But I say to you : A slave lived better than a caveman, clearly they are sharing in the wealth of their society. Slavery is AOK! The DISPARITY in wealth is what matters. If everyone was paid fairly and shared in the wealth creation in this country, the bottom 95 percent would be paying 60-70 percent of the taxes.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
1. I already stated that government must never be funded through income taxes because government is a spending item, and as such it must be spent upon in proportion with other spending, otherwise it destroys the economy by not letting it to restructure the debts, savings, production.
2. Consumption is actually the trivial part of economy - the complex part is production. Production should be promoted, consumption happens on its own. Investment is what is economy is about, not consumption.
3. The economy should not be aimed at the lowest common denominator - the poor. Economy of production promotes everybody into higher levels of wealth, even the 'poor'.
4. USA was actually funded through alcohol, excise and vice taxes prior to 1913, the poor should abstain from such activities and then they won't be paying those taxes.
5. When you say - huge refunds to the poor, what is it that you mean precisely? Why should refunds be 'huge'? However it is possible to means test people IF and only IF they wish to get some refund. Certainly there should be ability to disclose your private information to prove you should be excluded from paying most of consumption taxes, but there must not be any such requirement to people who do not require the refund, this would provide the necessary balance between power of the state to get into your business and your ability to pay lower consumption taxes.
You can't handle the truth.
When the rich paid 90% income tax, they paid a smaller portion of the total tax bill. The poster I replied to wanted the rich to pay "a reasonable amount" and expressed the opinion that the middle and lower classes pay excessive taxes. The bottom 50% of earners pay 2.7% of all federal income tax revenue. Is the OP suggesting that they should pay even less?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The poor are better off today than they were 100 years ago because of the generation of wealth, but the disparity is what matters. Its worse now than 30 years ago when our economy actually functioned and we produced things and the poor and middle class benefited from the wealth creation things were much more fair and balanced. You could say a slave lives better than a cavemen, clearly the slave is benefiting from the wealth in their society. Slavery must be OK. We shouldn't aim the economy at improving their lives since they live better than cavemen, even if the plantation owners live like gods in comparisons.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Saying that the government "earns" money is where your world view starts being wrong. I don't see a problem with an "unprofitable" government.
The rich should pay more. I am the OP. Having a 90 percent income tax on the super-rich acts as a way to keep the disparity in wealth in check. It also funds projects for the benefit of society. The wealthy owe it to society since our society is what enables them to be rich.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
So, you would like the top 1% to pay over 35% of all federal income tax collected? Or maybe you think the top 5% should pay over 50% of all federal income tax collected?
Of course, the fact is they already do.
Of course they do. The income tax is specifically designed for that purpose, which is why it is always singled out by right wing propaganda interests.
So, exactly what do you consider a "reasonable" amount?
A percentage high enough to ensure that you don't get a run away wealth distribution which eventually destroys the economy. While it is difficult to say exactly, historical evidence seems to indicate that 70% top margin income taxes with around 50% capital gains tax accomplishes that decently.
You know that is a false argument. If you overpay your taxes, they refund it. There is no provision to pay more than you owe.
False analogy. Slavery and relative poverty are clearly not in the same league.
As to 'wealth disparity' - thank the government, which destroys the competition and promotes monopolies and drives prices up with government subsidies.
You can't handle the truth.
Then tell everyone to spare us the individual pronouncements about how they're personally willing to pay more. We know what they really mean: "I'll pay $10 if I can have $10 million spent on my priorities".
My priorities are to get meddling government busybodies to butt out of everyone's life and to go find a productive job. This requires that they have less money to spend. The side benefit is that we can pay lower taxes.
Very low consumption taxes to support a very limited government don't unfairly hurt the poor. Any tax hurts, but very low taxes do not hurt unfairly.
Medicare for all. Like the rest of the civilized world. Or bust. Literally.
Medicare costs are ballooning; 9.1% in 2009, 9.6% in 2010. The HHS admits their 'error rate' (fraudulent payments) is above 10%. The real rate is higher yet.
There is still a little time left before the Chinese pull the plug on our spending. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Not false at all. Us lower class folks are slaves to the bank. We can thank the government for caving in to the wealthy's demands.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
You'll note that the last line item on this calculator is "Net interest" on the national debt. For my tax rate, it's 7.4% of my taxes..
You are apparently unaware that most of the money earned by the "super-rich" is not subject to income tax. Basically, what it comes down to is that you want to discourage people from earning more than you think is appropriate. Of course, this means that you want discourage people from maximizing their productivity. Yes, some of the people who you would call "super-rich" are not really productive, but many of them are. Additionally, the burden of a 90% top marginal tax rate would fall on those who are productive, because the others have the political connections to either get special exemptions carved out for themselves or to get away with it when they fail to actually pay the tax (Timothy Geithner, among others).
A while back Warren Buffet complained that he did not think it fair that he only paid 17% income tax, well, if he really thought that, why did he not pay more? The answer is that he didn't think that it was unfair that he only paid that amount, he thought it was unfair that someone else who made as much money as he did might only pay that much.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I thought the purpose of income tax was to raise money to pay for government programs. I think that using the tax laws for social engineering is a mistake and leads to widely disparate wealth distribution (those with political connections/power get very wealthy, those without those connections get poorer overtime).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
And yet, no one is starting new health insurance companies, and health insurance companies that already exist are trying to shrink and insure fewer people. If there's so much money in it, why wouldn't lots of new companies be formed?
Maybe, just maybe, there's something going on that you don't understand.
Also, you seem to be confusing giveaways to non-workers (Medicare and Medicaid) with money that could be used for your own medical treatment.
And you also seem to be confusing insurance, which is a financial product meant to protect your finances in the unlikely event of a major expense (like a house fire or an expensive illness), with cash to spend directly on your routine health care. "I buy fire insurance, but it's not efficient because my house hasn't burned down yet."
Congrats on reaching your age without understanding these basic concepts.
Well, actually, they got what they wanted, didn't they? Once the gov't gave itself the power to tax income and to print fiat notes, it has been steadily buying the votes of those very people with handouts, promised with printed fiat, while at the same time the gov't grew itself in size throughout all times. Look at /., it's filled with people who expect government to take care of everything, economically speaking - take the money from those who can make it and give it to those who for some reason decided that they cannot.
Of-course there is a huge gov't agenda going on, with the dep't of education and all the SS and Medicaid/Medicare having plenty to do with it, ppl are bought hook line and sinker.
As to being 'slaves to the bank' - again, thank the gov't, which promotes the culture of living on credit and loans for everything, from buying houses and cars, to now buying smallest things on credit. All gov't sponsored.
It's not that some gov't "caved to the wealthy's demands" to turn the lower income people into credit junkies, it's that the gov't itself turned the country into a huge credit junkie, living on borrowed time and dime. Thank the Chinese, well, don't thank them, they are not doing you any favors by providing both: the credit and the goods, and gobbling up insane amounts of worthless printed green pieces of paper.
Actually thank Rubin, who during Clinton's administration figured out how to refinance the then debt with short term obligations, I mean really short term - 3 months, 6 months and maybe a year bonds. If US tried to finance its debt with anything real - like 10-30 year bonds, the interest rates would have been in high double digits right now.
Anyway, I have no sympathy for anybody in this situation - it is completely self created, it will crash and everybody will have to restart from scratch in the West. I really hope that the smarter ones do get their capital into save heaven before that happens, because they will be needed for real new credit and investments.
You can't handle the truth.
They also take home about 12% of the income earned. So when the bottom 50% earn 50% of the income, then we can talk about fair taxation.
The median income is about $50,000 - take 25% of that for taxes and you have $37,500 left.
The highest bracket is 35% for an income over $373,650 in 2010. That leaves $242,872 if you're on the lower end.
The top 50% pay more because they earn more, and they're still better off after a bigger tax bite. I don't know about you, but I'd rather take the $242,872 after taxes than $37,500.
So the Bush era screwed up Medicare like it screwed up everything else. Fix it. We can't afford the private insurance cartel. That's how we cut costs instead of borrowing.
Besides, it's the Japanese who as big buyers of our debt who now can't afford it anymore, and will be spending their money more in their own country for a while. The reasons the Chinese buy our debt will get even more important, not less.
--
make install -not war
No one starts new insurance companies? You're totally wrong. Hedge funds buy an sell financial insurance all day long, and pop in and out of business. The health insurance business doesn't get new entrants, only mergers, because it's a cartel run by the most ruthless monopolists.
But we don't have to argue about abstractions. Health insurers make about 15% profit on hundreds of $billions a year. There's so much money in it.
For your information, I have worked for many insurance corps in my tech career, including health insurers. I know quite a lot about insurance. You evidently know little about it.
--
make install -not war
Do you know how much you pay today if you earn more than 500Kin Connecticut today? With 35% federal, 6.5% state (and the governor wants to push it up by a few points), FICA is really irrelevant then, because it's capped at first 100K, but 2.9% Medicare tax is applied on the ENTIRE amount. This is only the income taxes, can you do the addition?
The problem is it's not entirely additive. That 35% number you quote for federal is only for the amount above $380k (when the 35% bracket kicks in). People often quote the highest rate as if that's the total tax for the entire amount. This often comes up when people talk about taxes 50 years ago at 90% tax rates. The problem with this is that taxes are progressive so quoting the highest rate is misleading.
If you want to talk about taxes due, you should be calculating the effective tax rate, not the top tax rate. On $500k it's about 29% with no deductions (which everyone gets). Start there and your point would have more weight.
We all know SS all to often has greedy hands stuck into it taking money out for other things like defense.
And I'm sure there are other numbers not clearly represented.
Sept 10, 2001 Donald Rumsfeld stated that 2.3 trillion dollars of pentagon spending was unaccounted for. Thats was about $8,000 per US Citizen man, woman and child at that time. Narrow it down to tax payers and its more.... Where did the pentagon get the money?
The 94% that there used to exist was never paid, because ppl modify their behavior, and the actual effective rate for income taxes never goes outside of the 18-20% box for the federal gov't.
However I am not going to start there, my starting point is simple - income taxes and payroll taxes all must be 0%. There is no other percentage that is correct and I hope that's what you are paying for your sake.
You can't handle the truth.
Except anyone can use Google and find out this is false:
Perhaps I was giving you the benefit of the doubt when it seemed to me like you were confused. Either way, I suggest making true statements instead of false ones.
If the bottom 50% were taxed at the top rate of 35%, it would only bring in about $100 billion extra in revenues.
That's obviously a drop in the bucket of $1.3 trillion in discretionary spending.
Social Security is not part of your income tax it is deducted along with your income tax; its a trust fund deduction, it is that simple. The IRS collects it because it would be stupid to make a 2nd system to collect it from you.
It is a rock-solid trust fund you can fall back on in your old age or horrible circumstances that nobody can take away from you. Naturally, powerful forces hate this because they want your money and don't care if they loose all your money when they fail on some gamble or devise a scheme to steal it for themselves. If you can't trust the government trust fund, then you have much bigger problems that need to be fixed.
The flat-tax people should be happy because it is also as close to a flat tax as this nation will ever get. (its still not a tax but its funding is as close to flat as we'll get.)
Sure SS robs the banksters of your money because you have to save something for a rainy day or your retirement (if you are wise) and most places involve banksters itching to gamble (aka: leverage) your money for their profit. The system didn't crash because of SS or medicare there were other factors leading to the downfall which the banksters do not want us seriously talking about for 2 good reasons.
Why does everyone try to compare military spending on a flat dollar basis? That's like complaining that you living alone spend 100x more on food each month than a family of 12 living in Bangladesh, and that you should cut down your food spending to something closer to their levels. It completely ignores differences in population, economic productivity, and local prices.
The correct comparison is as a % of GDP, which takes into account differences in population, economic productivity, and cost of domestic goods and services. If we cut back our military spending to 1/6th of its current 4.7% GDP, we'd be the 20th lowest in the world. We'd be spending less than Japan does on defense even though Japan has its defense needs provided by the U.S. by treaty. The proper target for the U.S. alone would be about a 40% reduction in defense spending to match the world average. If you factor in Japan (we're obligated by treaty to defend them), the proper target would be about a 25%-30% reduction in defense spending.
Yes, I have been. Thanks for displaying how utterly ignorant you are as an example of the public. I repeat: don't read too much into this - this is a high level idea and the devil is in the details, as always.
Remember, you can't look dignified when your having fun! Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive
The problem is the disparity in wealth. All I advocate is a tax system that cycles the wealth from the super rich down to the middle and poor class. Its the only way to keep things balanced and keep the economy working well. Call it enforce philanthropy. Right now the only reason we function is because of debt. That includes our government and its people. Only so much debt can accumulate before the whole system collapses. The key is to properly manage the distribution in wealth. Its getting worse and worse. Last time it was this bad was during 1920 and then a depression hit. I have nothing against a society that has rich people and poor people, I am against a society where 10 percent of the population is rich and 90 percent of them are poor. That is equivalent to a feudal system. Its asking for trouble when it gets that bad.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Well, it sucks being stuck in the middle of that. Im not against a society that has poor people and rich people, I am against a society that has 10 percent rich and 90 percent poor. People used to be able to buy homes with savings on a factory job. You can't do that anymore. Living costs including rent alone end up taking most of your paycheck even if you own your own car outright. You must get a mortgage to get a house, and the minute you get laid off because the economy sucks you lose it back to the bank. Its not the average persons fault that the recession hit. Its bankers and wallstreet guys pulling get rich quick schemes and shooting for short term unsustainable gains. Its not fair. The world ain't fair, but no one even tries to make it better.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
As long as your post is what passes for mature political debate in America, you'll always be fucked.
I could write a list of reasons as to why your scheme isn't particularly viable, but I very much doubt you're the sort of person who is open to reason. You have your opinion, based on ideology more than what actually might work or not, and nothing in the world will change it.
Where are the bond vigilantes? If the currency is going to collapse, people like George Soros would short dollar like anything to make a killing. They are all shorting the yen and euro.
Shorting is a short term thing. Instead, look at the big investment funds. Several are reducing or dropping US bonds from their portfolios. By the time Soros shorts the Dollar, the damage will be imminent.
"Installing a catalytic converter on your own car won't improve the air you breathe in the slightest"
Bull. Shit. Did you even review what you wrote?
Cripes, no wonder this generation is fucked.
If you've ever been in a vehicle with a bad cat or exhaust or around one, you know you can smell your exhaust when you came to a stop, back up, more so on both if your windows are open. Most vehicles are not sealed tight, with filters on indoor passenger air only recently commonplace on vehicles (I've got a 2005 that doesn't have them). If you have family members that use the vehicles, your air quality is affected anytime you are outside the vehicle. And any time you stop and exit the vehicle, which is every time you use it, stop at a parking space or driveway or exit in a garage, your have fumes.
btw, that poster was suggesting something rather simple--if you believe something, YOU do it first before you can on others to act to YOUR benefit. It's called leading by example. If you believe the tax rate should be 20%, and you only pay 12%, screw you. If you believe in green, but don't buy green energy, use solar panels or wind on your property or geothermal, screw you. You're a hypocrite.
btw2, I have 2 neighbors north of me that wood burn non-stop for heat during the winter, and they often do it improperly with blue haze smoke for hours on end. Their air quality sucks. Their shitty air quality affects MY air quality. Not everyone has to stop wood burning for my air quality to improve drastically. If the 2 neighbors stopped, the neighborhood (some 15 properties) air quality would improve immensely. One of surrounding houses had a non-smoker family member who died of lung cancer. Some people just don't "get" it, and sad to say, people like you are one of them. Movements and examples ALWAYS starts small. Too often though, it goes in the wrong direction (like people with tuners putting on potato mashers or just having plain shit exhaust systems)..
Obama was borrowing at 2% and 2.5% when the economy was at the bottom.
This assertion depends on there being no liabilities due to the Federal Reserves's "quantitative easing" which among other things kept the yield on US bonds artificially low. The effective interest rate (from debt plus losses due to QE bond defaults) may end up being much higher. We'll just have to see.
Given the growth in the size of the economy and the deficit is not as big as the Republicans and Tea partiers make it out to be.
The economy isn't growing that fast. And the deficit is currently about 8-10% of GDP for the past few years.
We are able to do this because, USA is still the world's reserve currency, one bond that has never ever defaulted.
Yet.
If tea partiers manage to spook the world about the credit rating of US Treasury Bonds, US would become a third world country.
It's all the fault of those mean old tea partiers, not the people who have increased the federal debt by 20% in two years (plus however much it increases this year and next). As I see it, if a political faction can "spook the world," then US bonds are not as reliable as you claim.
It might be interesting to hear what you think "might work" means. If it "works", do we get a utopia?
Short of that, why should I expect that making myself poorer by paying more will result in some sort of improvement for me?
And when I want improvements for others, I donate to charity.
Whenever the government takes your money, you're not getting your money's worth.
People in the same income group as myself should pay less. People in other income groups should pay more. As far as I can tell, this is an almost universal definition of 'reasonable' when it comes to taxes, regardless of income level or tax rate.
Given that the median household income for CT in 2009 was $67K, I'm betting there's a whole lot of people in that state who would love a chance to find out what a $500K income looks like, despite the ruinous taxation rates you claim. ("Hi honey, got good news and bad news. I quit my $67K job for one that pays $500K, but roman_mir says that means I'll barely bring home $250K after taxes." Spouse: "Okay, so what's the bad news?")
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
That's a completely illogical argument because individual actions cannot solve collective problems.
Linux and GNU tools solved the collective problem of high cost for basic software on computers. While many people were involved, the movements were started by individuals. It's also worth noting that the efforts were voluntary just like choosing to pay more in taxes than you needed to.
Installing a catalytic converter on your own car won't improve the air you breathe in the slightest, whereas requiring everybody to do so (including yourself) causes a huge improvement.
It still requires individual compliance with the regulation. And one only needs to consider the idling of your vehicle for a long time in a space with relatively low ventilation (for example, digging out the rear of your car in a snowstorm which you have it idling to warm up), to see that you are wrong in your assertion that the individual won't see an improvement in their air quality from using catalytic converters.
The two are not the same, so equating them doesn't work.
Since the original author wasn't equating, but merely pointing out that with voluntary effort, you could help address the funding issues that the US government is currently undergoing. I think it would be a good idea in your case since it removes wealth from a person who clearly can't use it properly and transfer it to somebody, such as myself, who can.
But since we're on the subject of "equating", it's interesting that you conflate involuntary participation in some collective activity with solving collective problems. Increasing your tax payments is a voluntary action which many people can do. And in doing so, it becomes a solution to a collective problem.
I believe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy will fix it
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Its bankers and wallstreet guys pulling get rich quick schemes and shooting for short term unsustainable gains
- sure, but you may want to check out my sig to understand how it is, that they gained this ability.
The poor should be revolting against their government, not against 'rich people'.
You can't handle the truth.
No, if you are only making 500K, you'd be bringing home about 355K., however, any money somewhere above 380K is taxed at about 46% in total.
Yes, it is more than 67K etc. No, it doesn't mean that people should be cheering while giving up their income regardless of their tax brackets.
You did notice that I am for one single income tax bracket, correct? 0%
You can't handle the truth.
Well, I was wrong. I inverted a stat, the "medical loss ratio", that is required under the new law to be 85% spent on actual healthcare, to say that the other 15% is profit. It's not - it includes operating the insurer as well as profit. And indeed the insurers reported only a few percent as their profit margin. However, even in 2009 (the worst year for the economy in many generations) their profits were continuing a steep rise that has continued for a decade. In 2010 their profits continued their steep rise. And now under the HCR law, they're cooking the books to keep more profits by labeling operating costs as "medical expenses".
These insurers process $TRILLIONS in medical costs. Their profit margins are counted against the vast American medical expenses that are counted as their costs. So a few percent profit margin is a huge profit, and has gotten only huger. In fact, by portraying their profits in the shadow of the medical expenses, they're incented to allow and even encourage medical expenses to grow, so their profits (and waste in operating costs) look smaller. Now they're directly incented to do so by the law they lobbied hard to get specified to their satisfaction.
This is the point: there's huge and growing profit in running a health insurance corp. You said there isn't, but you're wrong. My stated rebuttal was flawed, but the point we're actually arguing about is still not what you say. It takes a little more than just a google to understand how they're playing and winning this game.
--
make install -not war
It's held in treasury inflation-protected securities called TIPS.
Individual actions can't solve collective problems, but they can prove you're not totally a hypocrite.
It's extremely easy to campaign for collective sacrifices, it's also meaningless when you know that there is no realistic chance of you ever suffering the sacrifice in reality.
Voluntarily doing so at least shows for sure that you're not a hypocrite.
-Styopa
Interesting. Still, if you abuse an unjust system you are as guilty of the injustice as those who enable it in the first place. A whole generation of us younger folks that have higher educations than preceding generations have to suffer because of this shit. Im just trying to start my life here, I have a MS in a science field, and am working on a PhD. I can't get work. I am actually considering going back to manual labor, which is fine, but a waste of my education and pays shitty in comparison to what I could actually do.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
In lots of states the health insurers are required by law to be non-profits. It is unlikely that the remaining for profit companies process even one $ Trillion in medical costs. But I haven't checked, so I don't know for sure.
Low single-digits profit margins are the motive for these companies to try to cut costs and be efficient. It's not high enough to attract many new competitors or investors. It's also not high enough to be a major factor in the rising cost of medical care. Most of us would not accept a 3% cut in insurance premiums if it also means we give up all choice over insurance coverage or providers -- and eventually we'll lose other, more important choices.
You might want to be more careful with the partisan talking points. They are misleading at best.
If you actually wanted to look into it instead of simply railing against profits (as if it were evil for someone to want a small return on the money and time and effort they've invested providing people with goods or services), you might come to understand the issue better.
100 % of income taxes are going to service the interest on the national debt at this time. Good times!
In 2009 private health insurance expenses were already $801.2B. It was growing anywhere from 1.3-11.6% each year in the decade leading up to it, typically in the 7-10% range. It's close enough to a $TRILLION right now that quibbling is just acknowledging that your real point was wrong.
Which it was. There's a huge and growing profit in running a health insurance corp, despite your saying the opposite. I haven't "railed against profits". I've railed against spending more into a cartel - that, as I pointed out, keeps competitors out, largely by keeping the costs of entry in the $billions. The profits + the waste amount to probably close to 10% of insurance costs to consumers. You might not want to keep 10% of your insurance expenses, but I do, and I expect most Americans do.
Look, it's obvious that you don't have any facts, or any real familiarity with the insurance business. You're not even bothering to cite or specify your arguments, while I give exact facts and citations. You're the one engaged in "partisan talking points", and nothing more. You're wrong, and refuse to even acknowledge what you're talking about because it's wrong. Facts and logic aren't changing you, and I'm learning nothing from you except to dislike you.
Goodbye.
--
make install -not war
it's not behavior, it's the definition of income. a great example is how rolls royce rose and fell with tax law. Back when income taxes were 94% in teh top bracket, several things allowed you to protect money. first, perks weren't taxed. So every executive had a driver, luxury vehicle, and other perks that weren't counted as income (they are now). Second, if you were paid overseas as part of a performance bonus, it wouldn't be taxed till the money was onshored. There were several other ways, but in general, most places kept accountants on hand to find the most efficient way to pay people and avoid all taxes. The AMT was created to combat this by giving much broader definitions of income and just flooring a rate on it.
there were many loopholes, but the reason the collected taxes stayed near 20% isn't some magic number, it has to do with the give and take in our system. your headline top marginal tax rate isnt' what you pay, unless you are an absolute moron. our country has basically settled in around that level.
many other countries collect quite a bit more in tax as a percent of the economy. It's not rocket science and behavior won't modify that far.
just to correct you, buffett said he thought it unfair that he pays a lower average tax rate than his secretary. And it's true, I don't care about arguments about productivity, there is no reason for the average tax rates in this country to be regressive. But this is because we unfairly bias income taxes in favor of investment income rather than other types of work. I'm not saying it should be disfavored, but there is no reason to favor it and create a distortion. Let the labor market work, don't unfairly bias it in any one direction.
granted, this is because everyone wants to be a rich investment titan and those titans have tons of political pull when it comes to taxes.
Here, let me help you with that.
And anyone that's heard of Hollywood Accounting knows that's bullshit. Try 30% "operating costs", which include millions for top executives, but aren't included in "profit numbers" since they are "operating costs".
Now, why don't you try giving the usual wingnut deflection a rest, and explain how other western countries spend half as much (or less) than the U.S. on health care, yet have better health stats than we do.
Only if you're a sophist. So the Ivory Coast could spend half it's GDP ($23.6 billion) and that would be "more" than what the U.S. spends on it's military in a year (over a trillion dollars)?
The U.S. spends more on "defense" spending than the rest of the world - combined - and that's a fact you can't obfuscate away.
In 2009 private health insurance expenses were already $801.2B. It was growing anywhere from 1.3-11.6% each year in the decade leading up to it, typically in the 7-10% range. It's close enough to a $TRILLION right now that quibbling is just acknowledging that your real point was wrong.
But you fail to subtract the huge percentage of the market that is handled by non-profit insurers. They don't make a profit.
Look, it's obvious that you don't have any facts, or any real familiarity with the insurance business.
I'm not the one making the false statements and repeatedly having to issue corrections.