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White House Proposes "Wealthy Tax"
President Obama is proposing a new tax rate for people making over $1m a year. The new rate is part of a larger plan which seeks to bring in $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue and is sure to meet opposition in congress. From the article: "The core of the president's plan totals just more than $2 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. It combines the new taxes with $580 billion in cuts to mandatory benefit programs, including $248 billion from Medicare." GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said, "Class warfare may make for really good politics but it makes for rotten economics."
So all they did was give even larger incentive for rich people to start playing games with taxes. Remember that tax planning isn't illegal, nor is forming offshore companies. It's unlikely to change as well, because foreign companies are needed too. As long as you keep the money in the offshore company accounts and not your personal ones, you don't need to pay taxes from them. The people making over one million dollars a year have all the means to do this - normal working people don't.
You know what, maybe start looking if the huge companies pay taxes? For example Google does a insane amount ($60 BILLION) of tax dodging.
Once the wealth accumulates to the top only, how will the economy survive without spending by the middle and lower classes? Won't a lot of business just shutdown because people don't have money to spend?
This space for rent.
It's a nice gesture, but it really won't do anything to address the root of the wealth disparity in this country: the military industrial complex that runs our government.
I don't respond to AC's.
This whole "fuck rich people" movement is really starting to get on my nerves. Rich people are not the problem, it's all of the tax loopholes companies take advantage of that is the problem, why not do something about them?
Oh wait, that's right. Tax loopholes and corporate tax law are far too complicated for the average American to understand, so they need a common enemy to crowd against...cue the rich person destroyin our 'conomy...somehow.
This is exactly what it is, a proposal. It will never happen! If it does and I am wrong, it will be with significant concessions as to render the thing useless and the middle class will bear the brunt again.
Now being rich is a crime?
How do I pay for my Xbox Live subscription, my BBM unlimted data plans, the new iPhone that might launch anytime, the new anytime or my trips around the world every six months, if I am paying taxes for these stupid homeless/poor people who live in the middle of nowhere?
Looting others' money is just not as fun as it used to be.
Some apps are WYSIWYG. Some others are WYSIWTF.
It is class warfare to increase tax rates in the highest income brackets to a level that is about half that of the 1950s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#1913_-_2010. The current tax rate for the highest income brackets is 33%. In the 1950s and 1950s the highest tax rate was 91%. One can also argue that the proposed increased tax rate won't even restore the high tax rate to the same extent, since the historical tax rates were for income of at least $250,000, whereas this will apply to income of at least a million dollars but this would be slightly misleading since adjusting for inflation $250,000 in 1960 dollars is around a 2 million now. But even given that, the general point should be clear: This is far less than the historic tax rate during a time period that is often considered to be one of the most stable and prosperous.
The other problem with labels like class warfare is how much they miss the point of what actual class warfare is. If one wants to see actual class warfare look at the French Revolution where aristocrats and clergy got executed and this eventually spread to wealthy merchants. Or look at the Russian Revolution and the following years where people were punished and exiled for simply being farmers who owned their own land and equipment. That's class warfare. Voting to increase tax rates to levels well below historical levels is just regular economic policy. One can discuss whether such taxes are a good or bad thing, but it is pretty clear that such discussion isn't going to go very far when people like Ryan are using this sort of ridiculously inflammatory rhetoric.
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Would you be so kind as to enlighten the rest of us how you've managed to do your work in a vacuum so that you've made no use of anything paid for by taxes?
We could stop having wars*, but the Republicans wouldn't like that idea either.
*and drastically reduce military spending
Remember how awful the economy was when Clinton was president? Eight horrible years of peace and prosperity, thank God that's long gone.
Going back as far as 1950, higher top marginal rates are (weakly) correlated with improved economic growth, not reduced economic growth ( http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/002279.html ).
We insist upon spending gobs and gobs of cash on stupid shit, and when we find we don't have enough to pay for it we lean on the people who don't have much to begin with, while simultaneously spending more of that non-existent cash by giving it to people who already have a lot of it. Makes perfect sense to me.
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
He lives in Somalia, you insensitive clod!!!!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So be poor and pay no taxes.
Next.
The top tax rate on personal income has never been lower, anytime in the past 50 years. Furthermore it was deliberately set lower than necessary to fund current spending levels, back in 2001. So raising it is only a sensible move. You would think from the outcry against it that it was some radical move to kill off rich people, but it is neither radical nor would it cause a catastrophe. It will not by itself greatly alter the distribution of wealth. But it will start getting us closer to having tax revenue actually fund what the government spends. (I do not think just cutting government spending is a reasonable alternative - although that can be done too - it was a combination of spending and poor tax policy that got us into this, and fixing both those things is a reasonable way to get us out of deficit).
tax you today for and promise to cut spending tomorrow.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Yes, that's true. However, I wonder why this comment is usually directed at the working classes, when they are the ones upon whom the warfare is being waged. The rich have been conducting class warfare in the US since the Reagan administration, and they are now beginning to reap what they have sown.
I now make more than twice what my father earned at the height of his career in the early 80's, but I have less actual purchasing power. Rotten economics indeed.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Might it not be better just to cut say military spending in half? Nobody is going to invade the US, without coming home to a glass parking lot anyway, and all that money is just thrown down a hole. Yes military spending is to an extent recycled back into the economy, but surely we can come up with something more constructive to spend it on if one must spend that money?
It sometimes still amazes me when I meet liberals who don't understand that many people who "make $1M" actually don't keep most of it even before taxes because they run sole proprietorships or partnerships. It's a testament to the fact that we need a "you must know this much to have a right to be heard" sign next to the soap box.
I'm all for giving men like Buffet and Gates precisely what they want. They want more taxes, have at it. Instead of starting the curve ramping up in the low millions, let's have it really start hitting home in the tens of millions and then go nuts when someone takes home over $100M. That way we know we aren't hitting small businesses.
Since most of the truly wealthy seem to have a left-wing streak, I as a conservative, see no reason to not give them what they want good and hard so long as we can spare small businesses.
Please understand this is a COMPLETELY honest comment. Please take it as face value. I am ignorant of this new tax and as I am working I don't currently have time to research. Based on the summery, President Obama is proposing to increase taxes on those that make over 1mil a year and the republicans are calling it class warfare. Which part of that is wrong / pandering to the conservative base? If it is fact then it can't be construed as bias, however, if it is FALSE then it should be discredited. In all honesty, I ask, please fill me in. Thank you.
don't think he said anything about "anything". providing $1 of services for $100 of taxes is still flushing money down the toilet.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I love how the conservatives trot out "class warfare". The non-wealthy must suck at it, because they aren't winning (and haven't been for centuries).
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
For the past thirty years we have held up the image of the put upon rich person who would love to invest in the US but can't because of our terrible tax burden. So the tax code has been modified to take the burden off the most wealthy [our top tax rate used to be 50% now it is 35%]. We did this in hopes that the wealthy would let the rest of the economy have more. This has not happened. In fact, the money has become more concentrated at the top while wages have stagnated at the bottom and in the middle. Instead of investing in industry, the Giant Pool of Money at the Top has bought US debt [we don't owe our soul to the Chinese, we owe it to the wealthy] and, because T-bills have had lousy returns for a decade, the money also went to fuel speculative bubbles [including the global housing bubble].
In this situation, where the top earners [about 5% of the population] have over 85% of the wealth, to whine about horrible confiscatory tax and wave the class warfare banner is beyond absurd. In order to have class war you need to have class, is the GOP saying that we still have class in the democratic United States?
"The conduct of neither [party], if strictly examined, will be irreproachable." -Elizabeth Bennet
...for a long time now. IIRC, the 250K top tax bracket dates back to almost the beginning of the income tax system, when 250K was legitimately rich, and the earner of 250K would likely be a millionaire due to cash reserves from earning that kind of money for years.
Nowadays, 250K is still a very, very good income, but inflation has curtailed its spending power significantly. New brackets every so often that account for inflation, or else a periodic adjustment of all brackets for inflation would probably be good for the country.
As far as those who want to argue that "job creators" in the form the of the wealthy wouldn't create jobs if their personal income were taxed higher, the simple solution would be to offer tax breaks for the demonstrable creation of jobs. This mainly would affect small companies where only a handful of people actually own the companies in question, as they could say, "I didn't take $XX salary because instead I reinvested $XX in the company for salaries for workers" with the ability to produce those figures from the payroll books...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Is it a slow news day? There's nothing at all happening in the world of science or technology that would be more important to the average nerd than this? What about every other bill the President has proposed? I haven't seen those on slash dot
Mod parent up. This is just tax policy news. There's no gadget, there's no advanced math - it's pure politics. This isn't news for nerds, this is news that applies to the general public and in no way applies specifically to nerds.
What's going to be entertaining (in the sense that the sad circus of American politics is entertaining) about this whole thing is to watch the about-face the conservatives will make about how much money it takes to be rich. Recently, various state governments have been going after unions, and you see conservative commentators on the various shows talking about how teachers make enough money, how $30-40k a year is plenty when you consider union benefits, blah blah. Now these same exact people are going to go on the same exact shows and, with a straight face, say how those poor folks making a million a year are just struggling to get by and really need a break in this kind of economy while completely ignoring the fact they've spent a better part of a year telling us a teacher's salary is downright lavish. How does a conservative's head not explode from the cognitive dissonance? Do they actually simultaneously believe these polar opposite stances they take, or are they (like all politicians) simply bought and paid for by their masters and puppet whatever talking points they are fed?
For those of you who are going to dispute my point, here are some preemptive replies. First, I know that folks on the left do this shit all the time too. I remember Kerry's "flip flopping" helping cost him the 2004 election. But pointing to the other side and saying "See, they do the same reprehensible thing we do" does not actually make it okay. It's still downright disingenuous. My point is simple: How much money does it take to be rich? Because the conservatives in America have two different definitions that depend not on the amount income, but essentially on class. The fact that these same conservatives are the first to scream "Class Warfare!" at this kind of proposal is deliciously ironic and the whole thing would be fucking hilarious if the stakes weren't so high.
Reality check: to solve the long-term debt crisis, two things need to happen. Taxes need to go up, and spending needs to go down. Either side that says you can do one but not the other is living in some magical fairy-tale land where facts are superseded by what they wish were true.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
If by "work hard" you mean go to a business school where they will give you a adress book of other self content bastards who will exclusively hire you instead of someone competent and teach you how to maximize short term profit until you can use your golden parachute (only to be hired the next month by another rogue corporation's board), then that's what you deserve. This is about 50% of the rich, "hard working people". Add to that the 45% of lucky sperms, and you have 95% of the rich out there.
Working hard is by far no guarantee to get wealthy.
Being rich is by far no proof to have worked hard.
The important thing is to spare small businesses from the tax increase. A lot of small businesses are either simple proprietorships/partnerships or LLCs, for which the profits are taxed as an addition to personal income. Proprietors and partners will pay these taxes from the cash on hand of the business, meaning that the business has fewer resources to expand and hire more employees.
So go ahead and tax the $20M CEOs and such, but try to avoid placing the additional burden on small businesses.
Did you miss the part that these "cuts" are over 10 years?
There's nothing binding here if the next President -- or even the next seated Congress -- decides it is going to change things.
More bread and circuses, with a nice class warfare frosting.
Because cutting half a trillion as a whole this immediate fiscal year (or even in the next 2-3) starting tomorrow is absolutely possible and practical. You can't have it now so having in 10 years is just impractical. Totally zero-sum. </sarcasm>
I love how people call this idea "class warfare" when it's been heralded not just by one billionaire (Buffett) but several. Ideology trumps logic.
This is a subtle point that is covered in first semester microeconomics. The "incidence" of a tax (who actually pays it, seller or buyer of a commodity) depends on the relative slopes of the supply and demand curves. If the commodity is inelastic (i.e. demand doesn't depend much on price: gasoline in the short run), then if you put a tax on the seller, they can just bump the price, and their revenue remains the same, while the buyer pays the full tax. On the other hand, if you have a very elastic commodity (where people are happy to not buy it if the price goes up a little bit), then a tax applied on the mfr falls mostly on the mfr, because if they raise prices, people stop buying. (Example would be a tax on domestically produced toys vs imported ones. There's a lot of toy mfrs out there, and people buy just on price)
So, corporations send tax money to the govt, and some of it is manifested in higher selling prices, but some is manifested in lower revenue. If you have a tax policy that is uneven across lines of business/commodities, you can use this to encourage/discourage certain lines of business (e.g. tobacco taxes). The problem is that different commodities all have different elasticities, and that elasticity changes with time scale (gasoline is inelastic in short run, you still have to drive to work today, but quite elastic in the long run, jack the price of gas up to $6/gallon, and people stop buying Escalades and start buying Honda FITs) If you put a huge tax on gasoline (to encourage reduction in consumption) it would hit the consumer first, but the manufacturers in the long run. So you could give individuals a rebate on the tax when they file everyyear.. OK that helps the overall consumption reduction goal, but now the tax code is more complicated. And so it goes
There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning
You sound ignorantly Teabagger.
Well you see, Buffett still has warm blood flowing through his veins and a couple well-oiled cogs spinning away in his noggin, so he's clearly an Evil Socialist.
Oh, that's funny. And pathetic. Really, you can't tell a front-page troll from pandering to the liberal /. masses, fairly slobbering at the prospect of demonizing the Right in favor of such rational concepts as taxing more in a recession, expanding government to reduce government debt, cutting entitlement programs in the same recession, spreading debt reduction over 4-5 election cycles, and preaching civility to the opposition while practising the most vile forms of libel and slander against that same opposition, with a straight face?
Not that the other side has a clue, nor any compulsion to do the very same thing, beginning with taxation, through cutting entitlements in the worst economy in decades, and finally just wanting it to be THEIR key that locks the door on recovery.
Really, too funny. ./ caters to all the loonies, if you squint a little.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Most Millionaires and Billionaires have Zero Yes Zero Income. When we say Millionaires and Billionaires, we are talking about their net worth (already previously taxed) and not their incomes. So who will this tax catch? Up and coming working Millionaires and Billionaires that haven't transitioned to living off their assets.
Federal taxes are built into gas, phone bills, any product you purchase. Taxes are built into everything. They do this in such a way that the true cost of government is hidden from populace. After all, if you got a bill at the end of the year that said "You owe us 60% of everything you made this year", people might get testy.
So please dont think that the poor are not paying taxes. They are, and they are probably paying a fairly large portion of their meager incomes to boot.
Can someone explain to me why Buffett's secretary pays a higher rate than him?
Yes. The issue is Capital Gains tax vs. Income Tax. Each has its own formula for valid reasons.
Warren Buffet does not pay income tax, he pays capital gains tax on his investments. If you have any investments you pay the same tax rate as he. Its simple really, if your investments perform well enough that you dont need to work - you and Buffet will enjoy the same tax rate.
If this push goes through, you will be taxed at a higher rate on your investments. So you get fucked both ways. But keep believing in the rhetoric the dems are pimping. There goal is to get their hands on more of your money. This is just another way. Fool.
The main reason that Warren Buffer, hedge fund managers, and many of the rest of the ultra-wealthy pay so little in income taxes is that most of their "income" is in the form of long-term capital gains: the appreciation of and sale of investments. On that money, they don't pay the maximum income tax rate of 35%, but rather the maximum long-term capital gains tax rate of 15%. (The situation is different for short-term cap gains, which are generally taxed at the ordinary income tax rate.) This is also the case for many CEOs who have compensation packages in the tens of millions of dollars: much of that value is in the form of stock and stock options, not outright salary.
In that light, creating a new, higher income tax bracket is unlikely to have quite the intended impact that many would like to see: having the ultra-wealthy pay at least as great a percentage of their annual income as taxes as their secretaries, minions, and housekeepers. Much as I prefer a simplified tax code, it seems to me that we may want to instead add this provision: If more than 50% of your adjusted gross income comes from long-term capital gains, then count it as ordinary income, because that's what it is to them.
Yes, some will find ways around that (and goodness knows the ultra-wealthy have tax planners aplenty), but it seems more equitable than what we have currently. Please don't trouble us with the strawman argument of "If the ultra-wealthy have their investments taxed so heavily, then they won't invest." What else are they going to do with all their extra money? Save it at ~0% interest?
I remember going to the bankruptcy auctions of several dot-com companies and thinking: Damn, there are a sh*load of Aeron chairs here...and a powered paraglider no doubt the CEO was using. I'd love to be able to say to my investors and customers "Gee, we bought all this cool stuff but we don't have the money to pay for it so we're going to have to double our prices and force our customers to pay for it and we're going to issue more stock and force investors to buy it. Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket."
Old & busted: Spending bill aka tax hike.
New hotness: Deficit reduction bill aka tax hike.
And then there's this so-called jobs bill which btw, hasn't even been introduced on the House floor. This is the mother of all adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM). Offer a teaser rate for 16 months and then skyrocket the rate. Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket.
so much for the incentive to excel
I am not going to say much on this topic, just note another step in the wrong direction by Marxist government.
You can't handle the truth.
Poor often don't pay federal income taxes, but they do pay other taxes, and considerably more, relative to what they make and the wealth they have, than the middle and upper classes.
How come GM can make $50 billion of dollars in profit and pay zero tax? AND receive bailout money? (source = http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/03/gm-tax-break-could-be-wor_n_778300.html)
Extra taxes on the very wealthy is all very well, but it's kinda like fixing the dripping tap in the bathroom while your swimming pool disgorges hundreds of liters an hour out into the backyard, flooding everything, killing all the plants, ruining the carpet in the rear of the house and drawing the ire of your neighbors who suffer for it too.
And then claiming on top of it all fixing the tap is class warfare.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
Note that this is still an income tax -- not a wealth tax. Those who are already wealthy can and will always game this such that they report little income, thereby preserving their wealth. If necessary, they'll just keep their money offshore.
If he had any sense, he'd offer an amnesty to the wealthy. Allow them to repatriate their funds from overseas at a reduced tax rate so that money comes back to the US. The money the treasury makes on that smaller percentage would still be more than the zero they get from it today.
"Class warfare may make for really good politics but it makes for rotten economics."
Hey, that's actually true! Why didn't you shout out during the Bush administration?
Tax cuts for the rich, huge public deficit, enormous public debt, continued private indebting of the middle class, withering away of the public school system and other government systems that the American middle class and lower classes depend on...
Terrible acts of class war that lead to terrible economics, especially in the long term when the debt is going to be paid off, or alternatively when the US decides to default.
So you're right. Of course, if you don't want a class war the first thing to do is to remember to not start one.
Number of households in the United States filing tax returns: 140,494,127
Number of households in the United States filing tax returns with incomes of $1,000,000 or more: 236,883
Percentage of households in the United States filing tax returns with incomes of $1,000,000 or more: 0.19959471529%
Percentage of households in the United States filling tax returns with incomes of less than $1,000,000: 99.80040528471%
Number of people in the US living at or below the poverty line in 2001: 34,570,000
Number of people in the US living at or below the poverty line in 2010: 46,200,000
Percentage of US population living at or below the poverty line in 2001: 12.1%
Percentage of US population living at or below the poverty line in 2010: 15.1%
Of those living at or below the poverty line in 2010, the percentage that are 18 years old or younger: 35.5%
Of those living at or below the poverty line in 2010, the number that are 18 years old or younger: 16,401,000
Total number of people living in the United States, as of September 19, 2011: 312,204,000
Maximum number of people living in the United States who would be affected by President Obama’s proposal to impose a minimum tax rate on those earning more than $1 million a year : 450,000
Highest possible percentage of people living in the United States who would be affected by President Obama's proposal to impose a minimum tax rate on those earning more than $1 million a year: 0.144136526118%
Number of people in the United States who would not be affected by this tax increase: 311,754,000
Lowest possible percentage of people living in the United States who would not be affected by President Obama's proposal to impose a minimum tax rate on those earning more than $1 million a year: 99.855863473882%
All stats derived by me from Census.gov using 2010 and 2011 census data, and from IRS.gov data using 2009 data, the most recent year for which reporting, especially Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) information, was available.
The first person to invoke Census.gov or IRS.gov conspiracy theories will receive my 1st Annual Stannous Fedora Trophy. Please reply with your mailing address, so I'll know where to send this very special award.
Goddamn Republicans beating the same fucking drum they've been beating for 10 years "Lower taxes and remove regulations so corporations can compete!" Ignoring the fact that that's what got us into this mess to begin with.
And Goddamn Democrats incapable of showing anything resembling leadership. Hook up that vagisil IV drip because they're just a bunch of vaginas.
Vote them out. Vote them all out. And keep doing it until we find some representatives who are more interested in solving the nation's problems than playing political games with American lives as the pieces.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I only have one question for all who cry "class warfare". Where are all those cries when programs that benefit only the wealthy at the expense of the poor are proposed. Class warfare isn't just a one way street, it goes both ways. You may say that benefits that favor the rich will "trickle down" and create jobs but we all know that most of the jobs created are in China and India. If job creation is the goal, why not tie any benefits to actual DOMESTIC job creation. If DOMESTIC jobs are not created, no tax cuts for you. If you cut DOMESTIC jobs, your taxes should go up.
OK... much as people hate the tall poppies, guess what happens when you give them massive disincentives to operate in your jurisdiction? They leave and go make their money elsewhere. They take their jobs with them.
This is not the solution - much as the average joe doesn't like it, rich people operating their business in your country provide jobs.
Tax less, stop removing the disincentives to employ people over there, and the economy will actually start producing things and making money. Rather than relying on borrowed money from China to provide bunk GDP "growth" that measures debt-funded spending on goods imported from overseas.
However, it is no doubt popular with the voters.
Good luck america, with leadership like this, you'll need it.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Eh, there's no conservatives. Everyone is nuts.
"Taxing the Rich" is really code, anyway. Here we are actually taxing "the rich," but often the argument hides the separation between "the rich" and "businesses." The past decade or two have centered around "Business as The Rich" politics: insurance companies, oil companies, Wal-Mart, etc, have the money we need to support everyone else. That sort of tax structure is really taxing "The Poor," because we just basically reduce the production capability of the economy--destroying wealth, thus reducing the availability of jobs. It seems that just in the past year or so we've moved to "People with Money as The Rich," possibly because the other model is better for setting up a political climate where, say, socialized healthcare seems viable (The Government will make those evil, rich insurance companies and health care providers pay for it, so it's okay), but I only see a huge blunder for that specific argument--I don't see how the politicians leveraged that political portrayal, so much as just stumbled along and cried until they got their way.
I'm more concerned with controlling businesses than taxing the shit out of them. The government needs to put dynamic but sensible market-driven controls on things like living expenses and tuition. The problem is this is extremely hard to work out. Full communism fails because we can't just dictate that a widget or an apartment or a year of tuition will cost so many dollars and expect shit to work; but full capitalism fails for the same reasons: college degrees are such an important commodity and instant money is so easy to get that tuition is "whatever the fuck we feel like charging" (and create a financial nightmare for students), while landlords raise prices when they think people with more money are willing to live there (regardless of actual operating expense--a $600 apt is a $1200 apt if someone will pay $1200 for it).
These kinds of activities are bad for the economy. Restricting landlords for example--say by strong tax incentives and strong tax penalties to create a big profit gap to jump--would put more money in the economy and lower the poverty line. Let's say a landlord company can operate reasonably at 15% rental income above operating expense--if it takes $100 to run, you can make $115. Isolate this to areas (say zip code) with limited grouping (maybe 3 plus remainder, i.e. you can have groups of 3 3 3 5 but not 3 3 3 6 or 3 3 4 4). The landlord will do class separation: he'll decide that these apartments are more expensive (profit) while these other apartments are less expensive, to keep the poor away from the middle class--trust me, they hate each other anyway.
Seems legit, right?
Except, at 15%, maybe the landlord has enough money to stave off odd fluctuations--and hell we have insurance for that, which is an operating expense--and to save up some coffers. Great, but what about buying that other building? Do we just give them back their interest in taxes? Then they won't care for a low-interest loan, and the banks will give high-interest loans to ream the government in the ass! Do we let them keep the interest as an expense? Then they can buy (and sell) a bunch of properties and run rent high, reaming their tenants! What about when they sell a building? Invest their money? Surely we can't cut that off their "expenses"--I'm not ready to commit to a "Your tenants share in your good investment strategy!" bill, if you can make 7.5% off your coffers then you can keep it on top of the 15% profits from rent.
It's complex. You don't want to dictate onerous shit onto businesses--or tax them to hell--but you can't let them run free. There are definite advantages to something like the above, or similar for college tuition (for books it's easy: mandate that all college courses must supply any graded material and allow the use of any text, thus previous editions or BETTER texts may be used). You have to not collapse or stall the busine
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The money of the wealthy isn't locked up in a vault or giant mattress, it's out there in investments.
You're right, it is...unfortunately, the investments are all on the other side of the world. Companies in the US get tax breaks which affords them more money to lobby government and make it easier for them to move more money overseas.
If they were actually investing in this country we wouldn't have the massive unemployment we do. It's fairly obvious that the money is only moving one way right now, out of this country. If you want to blame Americans for wanting a first world salary for their labor, that's fine, but I doubt you're going to find much popular support for that Randian bullshit.
It's about time the rich "share the sacrifice". First nation in history to give tax cuts to the rich, during a time of war. And some of you want to whine about class warfare? You're damn right it is, and the rich have been waging it on the rest of us for 30 years.
While not a TEA party member, I would think most of them would not be either if they actually felt their taxes were being used wisely. When you see your tax dollars going to so much government waste and needless spending and bureaucracy it's easy to fall into the TEA party mindset. When you fix Washington's wasteful spending, then I and many others will be up to considering more taxes.
Drop the unprovoked wars against third world countries all over the place, and you'll save well over half a trillion this financial year alone.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Many comments have noted comparisons with the past as if a simple comparison establishes a rule, but very few are true. Any time a programmer or engineer wants to make an honest calculation he wants it to be on solid fact.
No politician or journalist has put forth a key HARD FACT to put INCOME & TAX issues in perspective. Why? What is the total tax, license & fee take out of the economy by all forms of government over time? Last time I heard it is over 50%.
Want it to be even WORSE? Add to that the cost of all forms of regulation compliance.
Are we serfs working for a dictatorial government that is now the ruling class with salaries 2-3 times that of their privates sector counterparts?
Look up the tax rate of the 50's, and then tell me how the nation didn't implode back then. You are an uninformed jackass.
Once the wealth accumulates to the top only, how will the economy survive without spending by the middle and lower classes? Won't a lot of business just shutdown because people don't have money to spend?
You ask the question like this is something that might happen in the future. But really you have described exactly what has been going on for 30 years and exactly the results that we are suffering from today.
-- QED
inflation.
The unstated policy of the Federal Reserve and the past umpteen administrations is to debase our currency in order to pay off debts more cheaply. Heck, the value of the dollar has lost about 95% of its value since 1913, and about 25% in the last decade alone. So as this continues, we'll all ultimately become millionnaires, but that money won't buy very much. And this "new tax rate for millionnaires" that all you are supporting will apply to YOU.
But it isn't "class warfare" because it is Obama sticking it to the rich!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Let us know when it flops to less than 99% of the population making less than 1 million a year.
Sure, there's a lot of money that could be made once we crippled the Military Industrial Complex and gut useless agencies like the TSA.
Oh, wait, rich people invest in all those companies so that spending is ok. I forget sometimes.
Did you miss the part that these "cuts" are over 10 years?
There's nothing binding here if the next President -- or even the next seated Congress -- decides it is going to change things.
More bread and circuses, with a nice class warfare frosting.
Because cutting half a trillion as a whole this immediate fiscal year (or even in the next 2-3) starting tomorrow is absolutely possible and practical. You can't have it now so having in 10 years is just impractical. Totally zero-sum. </sarcasm>
I love how people call this idea "class warfare" when it's been heralded not just by one billionaire (Buffett) but several. Ideology trumps logic.
I guess it's easy for Buffet to call for higher taxes since his company doesn't pay them.
From HERE
Berkshire Hathaway, the eighth-largest public company in the world according to Forbes, openly admits to still owing taxes for years 2002 through 2004 and 2005 through 2009, according to the New York Post. The company says it expects to "resolve all adjustments proposed by the US Internal Revenue Service" within the next year.
Sure, if I didn't pay taxes, I wouldn't mind if they were raised.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
It's easy to fall into that line of thinking, if you're lazy. We're involved in two wars. You can cut every social program you want, but we're still flushing money down the war shithole. Not only that but we've given the richest citizens a giant tax cut during the wars. Shared sacrifice? Why aren't teabaggers anti-war? Rhetorical question, of course....
Yeah, as someone who grew up in a work-class family that managed to climb to the upper middle class/lower upper class (or whatever you want to call it) I'm going to quote my dad (who started his own company which ended up becoming fairly successful): "Sure we worked hard but we were lucky too". That pretty much sums up his views on his own success, he worked hard but he was lucky to be in the right place at the right time with the right idea...
On a personal level I've actually had some issues this experience of upward mobility, I grew up in a working class neighborhood, just about all my old friends are the children of people who worked blue collar jobs, I knew I had to work hard to make anything of myself and despised the idle rich (and according to my dad I did so with good reason) yet these days my dad frequently has to deal with these people and yes, a lot of them truly see themselves as "self-made" even though they really had it easier than my dad (and required less luck since they were born into wealth).
1. Save $1.5 trillion in 10 years with the help from a new tax. 2. Save another $1.5 trillion in 10 years from other cuts. 3. Problem solved..? ...But there are $1.3 trillions missing -every- year, what's going to cover the rest?
In Wisconsin we have a 5.5% sales tax.
If you live paycheck to paycheck, effectively you pay 5.5% in taxes assuming you do nothing but spend your money on taxable goods.
If you do not live paycheck to paycheck, you only pay that 5.5% tax on the money you spent on taxable goods.
For low-income individuals, a significantly larger portion of their expenditures are applicable for sales tax, meaning that 5.5% tax may wind up being 4%+ of their annual income. Where as an individual who is exceptionally wealthy will not be spending a significant amount of their income on taxable goods. So that 5.5% will only be about 1% of their income.
By their very nature, consumption taxes are regressive, not progressive. Poor people almost universally pay a higher rate on consumption taxes than rich people.
The same can be said for income taxes. Individuals like Buffet, Jobs, Syrge, etc... who take $1 salaries are effectively scamming the tax system. They pay into unemployment insurance, social security, payroll taxes, etc... at a $1 income level. Meaning THEY AREN'T PAYING INCOME TAXES EITHER! They get the vast majorty of their anual pay from unerned income. Dividens, stock bonuses, trades, etc...
And THAT is the huge tax cut that was supose to expire. The piddly 3% change to the top marginal INCOME TAX is nothing, the 15% cut to the top marginal unearned income tax is where the resistance is coming from.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
That sweet tax-free lifestyle is available to you anytime you want. Simply give away all your possessions, get yourself a job cashiering at Walmart, and enjoy that awesome tax-free lifestyle LIKE A BOSS!
Oh, wait...then you'd have to live like a poor person. I can see now why you choose be rich. Guess those taxes aren't so bad after all, huh?
You are joking right? $3T in proposed "deficit reduction" of which $1.5 comes from increased taxes. The other $1.5T comes not from cuts but from reductions in an increasing baseline budget. Of the $1.5T, $1T is said to come from 'winding down Afghanistan and Iraq' but of course ignores the enormous future costs of verterans care, repair/replacement/restocking of military equipment. Leaving $500B for reductions in entitlement outlays over 10 years - $50B a year, if it is indeed all from entitlements. So please, get your facts in line. There is not a single cut to anything in this proposal. Spending will be higher each and every year going forward. And none of this is binding on anyone in the future.
As to the tax aspect. Brilliant idea to raise the capital gains rate on those with the most capital to invest. Do you think they will keep that money here? Or will they invest abroad where it will, net of taxes, have a higher return?
Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they're now trying to control everything by other means. They're progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people. M. Thatcher
Some of today's rich people disgust me. Kudos to Buffett, one rich guy who isn't disgusting.
You FELL FOR IT! Did you know Warren Buffet can go pay for the Federal Debt--there's a link on their page--but he hasn't? He's called for the government to come get it from him. It's great marketing because it won't really happen. It'll be debated, but won't happen. He went out there to make himself look good, because what he said has no real meaning.
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No, President Obama is proposing letting the Bush tax cuts for those people making more than $250,000 expire.
God is imaginary
This bill is dead on arrival that the House, which is Republican controlled. Too many there have signed Grover Norquist's pledge to NEVER raise any taxes of any kind.
I'm sorry to say this, but the radicals are now in control. Just like the Taliban, they have an extreme ideology and will not compromise or make "common sense" decisions because they carry a radical philosophy.
As such, there is no longer any 'bargaining" going on. The bill will be flat out struck down or filibustered into oblivion. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but our Congress has passed almost no legislation of any kind since taking office 18 months ago. All they've done is argue.
This is the Congress that campaigned on a platform of "jobs", came in and immediately wasted two days reading the Constitution, then tried to repeal Obamacare and abortion rights, and since then, hasn't done anything except destroy the nation's credit rating.
Good luck getting this through.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
We could stop having wars*, but the Republicans wouldn't like that idea either.
*and drastically reduce military spending
Considering our Democrat President has continued both wars, and that his budget request for the DOD was HIGHER than that passed by the GOP controlled House, I'd say both parties are fine with the defense spending we have...
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I live and work overseas the entire year. I get the distinct pleasure of also paying US taxes, as well as taxes of the country I live in. I've not used anything in the US in terms of infrastructure, but I sure get to pay for it!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Why do people that aren't rich defend people that are? The problem is very simple, just about everyone reading this is not rich. If we would like to live better lives, and build small and medium businesses we need capitol to do this. If the rich have it all, we can't. The only way for our lives to get better is if the rich have less of the money and we have more. It really is just that simple. We can't have more unless the rich have less!
Now, for those that are not rich defending policies that benefit the rich at your expense? WTF? Do you think the rich will read your post and like you? This is like President Obama pandering to the Republicans. It's just dumb. You aren't one of the club.
George Carlin said it best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpcd0woY2KY
* Carthago Delenda Est *
It sounds like you're suggesting there's something unfair or unjust about taking the fruits of people's labor away from them.
If so, then I agree.
I wonder, though, when that unfairness happened. We have, for many generations in a row now, commanded our government to overspend. We punished, at the polls, any political candidate who said they would not overspend. If someone ran on the platform of not taking short-terms gains at the expense of people in the future, we voted against them by a wide margin.
Welcome to the future. We always voted for either you, or your descendants, to be the final sucker who pays the price. Either be the leaf node on the Ponzi tree, or find a way to be an interior node, so you can laugh and point at the leaf below, hopefully dying before any retribution. But please, don't ever say you didn't want anything unfair to happen, or for there to not be any final victim who has the fruits of their labors taken away. We all did want something unfair to happen.
I think it's fine to complain about the relative efficacy of various strategies for facing the debt and unsustainability, but let's not ever cast the debate in terms of someone being a victim or unfair things happening, because those things are certainties beyond debate. The debt undenably exists and somebody is going to pay for it. Will dead people pay for it? I think not. Therefore, injustice must happen.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
It's all well and good that he wants to bring down the deficit. I hate taxes, but if it would lower the deficit, then I'd support it. But our federal government has a track record doesn't it? They will raise taxes... and at the same time, raise the deficit. Then we'll invade another middle eastern country, or maybe even Africa this time... install a new base, bomb more cities. Maybe we'll use a bit of it to hire a Chinese company to build some bridges for us.
The problem isn't the government, the problem is us. If you're voting democrat or republican, YOU are the problem. Vote for ANYONE other than the 2 established parties and you'll be doing something to make a difference. You can even vote communist, I don't care. Just get the parties that are currently working together to destroy this country out of office... we can clean up the mess afterwards.
How many of those taxes you listed are Federal taxes, not local taxes?
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Being rich is by far no proof to have worked hard.
I know a fair number of wealthy people and I can absolutely agree with this. Almost all of the money they have was earned by grandparents and great-grandparents who were the true entrepreneurs. The subsequent generations just give the money to investment bankers and live on the returns. These people haven't worked a hard day in their life. They didn't even have to work to get into school because their families all donated large sums of money to them so they get in by default, as well as pass (because the last thing you want is a family pulling their annual endowment, better give the junior fuck up a good grade).
There are a few that took the money and worked to start their own businesses and make their own names for themselves, but they are the minority. Mostly it's just coasting on money earned the last time there was no middle class in this country, i.e., pre-WWII...
Since when did slashdot become a Republican mouthpiece? Plus, the quotes in the summary above ARE NOT FROM THE @#$%@# ARTICLES!!!!! Both of those quotes that samzenpus says are "From the article" are exactly nowhere in either article.
The quality of the editing here on slashdot has gone down the drain recently. If this sort of fabrication occurred on a real news site, then samzenpus would be out of a job.
No, because even with a dollar buying less than 95% of what it used to, most people are still earning $40,000 per year or less.
You're forgetting that despite inflation and the devaluing of the dollar, middle class wages have been flat for more than 30 years.
So, even though the dollar buys less, we earn the same amount. Our wages aren't adjusted for inflation or what a dollar is "worth". That *why* everyone is in credit card debt, because it's impossible to make ends meet without going into debt because every year, we actually earn LESS.
I'm unlikely to earn $1 million per year, even if the dollar was worth a penny. So, please, go back to basic economics class and try and think with what little brain you've got.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
By increasing taxes on those high earners, who are the most productive people in our society, they will be forced to be even more productive to recoup the lost earnings. We will have a productivity boom that will blow away all past statistics. Maybe.
But then, look at how hard those 40% work who pay 'no' taxes (If you don't count sales tax, SS tax, and all the other junk taxes.) People who pay 'no' taxes pay a higher percentage of total tax on their earnings than America's largest corporations paying 'no' tax (at the highest corporate tax rate in the world.)
Spending cuts NEVER happen. History shows us that.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The tax rate in the 1950s is irrelevant. You are comparing apples and oranges. Your also playing straight into Class Warfare, which usually involves only giving half the information needed to arrive at the real result. Marginal tax rates had a tendency to let those who fell below the cut off to escape nearly all of it. Plus, no one earning the amounts needed actually paid anywhere close to it. Many knew the tricks and they used them, think the Merriweathers and Kennedys weren't rich then or earning money hand over fist?
First off, what he is proposing is nothing more than another AMT. We know what that got us, it is hitting people who were never intended to be hit yet is it gone? Hell no, they can't let go of a tax. So we will end up with a new set of rules that will likely bite a lot of people in the butt later on who weren't supposed to ever worry.
Second higher tax rates do not normally translate into higher tax income to the Federal Government. This has been proven time and time again. The best way to stop someone from doing something is to punish the activity. If taxes go up on certain income levels you can guarantee that your suddenly going to find the number of people earning those numbers falls dramatically.
So what do we have? We have a politician running for reelection who needs to fire up his base and have a campaign issue because he cannot stand on his record. Hence he is staging tax cuts for the rich versus taking away medicade/medicare for the poor. Got to love how he WONT CUT ONE PENNY WITHOUT THEM RICHIES PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE. That is not the talk of someone trying to fix a problem, that is someone on the campaign trail.
This leaves us with our current problem, we spend too much. We also have too many suspended taxes which in turn keeps people that have the money and resources from spending. They won't when they know that not only will the Bush era tax rates possibly revert but in 2013 a whole slew of new taxes begin which will add four to six percent more to their tax load.
This means the money will go where it can earn tax free. Welcome to munnies, the home of real money. The place where politicians and their rich rich buddies put a lot of money to escape taxes.
If the goal is to raise revenue then give the markets something concrete to live with. This means setting PERMANENT rates that are not subject to a vote to maintain. Set growth rates. Do not tax to bring the rich down, you don't bring the poor up by bringing someone down.
1. Bring down our business tax rate, ours is one of highest in the world and one of the few that taxes income made outside of the country. Both are great reasons to relocate off shore or sell yourself to another country's big business (look for China to start buying some up who go willingly)
2. Capital gains tax, slash it. You do realize that many European counties have this at ZERO PERCENT!. Capitol gains taxes are taxes on income by a company that already had been taxed on that same income!
3. CAP income tax rates. Set them in stone. None of this "we will renew it next year crap"
4. Flatten tax rates.
Every dollar taken by the government out of the economy is another dollar which no longer creates a job, no longer keeps a job, and no longer invests in a job. Government cannot create, it can only move money from one place to the next and considering the fraud rates many government programs suffer that is a tax in itself.
As for ridiculously inflammatory rhetoric, your dredging up the French and Russian revolutions is so over the top I don't know where to begin.
Look. Obama has said many times in interviews, you can find some on Youtube if you want to see the words emerge from his mouth. He said he knows that raising capitol gains taxes might not bring in more money, he wants it to be fair.
Well guess what sunshine, being fair will only mean those at the bottom will suffer more because the bottom moves too. You cannot raise the poor up by bringing those above them down. It never works.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The problem is that half a trillion dollars over ten years is barely significant compared to the amount of money the federal government spends over 10 years. So, what we are talking about is a tax increase right now in exchange for an insignificant cut in spending over ten years that might not even happen.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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We are discussing Federal taxes.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
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Actually, I am a registered Democrat, if you must know, and I have never attended a so called Tea Party rally or read any of their literature.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
What is it like to have seen so utterly owned in a political discussion?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Can someone explain to me why Buffett's secretary pays a higher rate than him? What other country has a more regressive tax system?
Simple - his earned income (salary) - on which he pays income taxes and Social Security/FICA taxes - is less than his secretary. His unearned income - capital gains on passive investments, bank account interest, etc - is huge. But that's at a lower 15% tax rate - so that's what most of his total income is taxed at.
If you want to hit the rich like Buffett in the pocketbook, don't play around with the income tax at all. Raise the capital gains income tax rate to 50%. That'll nail Buffett, Gates, and the other super-rich. Whether or not hammering your investment source is a good idea is another question, but if you want Buffett to pay a higher tax rate than his secretary, you're only recourse is to raise the capital gains tax - because his earned income is less than his secretary in the first place. He will always pay a lower tax rate.
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We need a flat tax on income with no loop holes. The only "deduction" should be living expenses, which should be pre-calculated by your local county, and you don't fill that out.
Make $100k/year, but live in an area with $80k/year median living expense cost, your effective income is $20k/year. You pay taxes on that $20k
Make $40k/year, but live in an area with $20k/year median living expense cost, your effective income is $20k/year. You pay taxes on that $20k
The local median living expense should never exceed some factor of the national median living expense, that way you can't have a bunch of rich folk buying out a county and skewing the median.
This is just a start of an idea, I have no idea how it would play out, that would be up to people more knowledgeable than me to find out. But on the surface, it looks like it would allow for a more "fair" taxation.
Personally, I think corps are tax dodging more than people are. Corps are reporting record net profits during a recession and getting 0% effective taxes.. WTF?!
The unfortunate truth is that right now the rich pay a lower tax rate than most other people.
The facts say otherwise. A little research would show "the rich" actually pay a higher rate - and pay a higher rate given their share of adjusted gross income, too.
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Correct. It isn't assault when you knee a rapist in the balls either. The rich are clearly the agressors in this class war, and they have been for at least 30 years.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Certainly not to the degree they used to. Because they got underwater gambling in the mortgage securities market.
I've paid taxes. Whereas most of the poor have not.
Most of the poor pay no FEDERAL tax; they pay plenty in State, local, and excise taxes.
Taking from the middle class to give to the rich, who benefit from government far more than anyone else is bad (Warren Buffett paid half the rate his secretary did), but for the rich to then whine about their taxes is obscene. Render unto Ceaser that which is Ceasar's."
Free Martian Whores!
Based on the summery, President Obama is proposing to increase taxes on those that make over 1mil a year and the republicans are calling it class warfare. Which part of that is wrong / pandering to the conservative base?
Except that he is looking to place the taxes on their income at the same level that the rest of us peons pay. Currently we have a heavily regressive taxation system, he is looking to flatten it.
Of course, one would not know that by reading this summary. The summary wants one to believe that he aims to take away all the income from those who are receiving more than $1M in compensation, which is (at the very least) dishonest.
In other words, it isn't class warfare. In reality it is an attempt to actually level the playing field, but of course the wealthy won't stand for that.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said, "Class warfare may make for really good politics but it makes for rotten economics."
The GOP has been waging a class war on the middle class for over a decade and guess what, the middle class lost. Since 2000 the median income level has been dropping, while the top 1% of income earners has seen a 20% increase. The shift of income from the middle class to the most wealthy has already taken place. Now the GOP wants to assure the top earners do not lose what they stole from the middle class. It is the height of unmitigated gall for Rep. Ryan to use the "class warfare" meme.
I know, but many folks act like that's the only thing that matters and that it's just a travesty that the poor "don't pay" any taxes and so therefore, they are getting a completely free ride.
Listen up, everyone!
This is a great tip on how the rightist overlords of this country have rooted our brains.
There's a thing called a "thought-terminating cliche". It's a word or short phrase that you see people tossing out a lot, a sort of a "stop thinking" secret code. It's often a "folksy kinda folk wisdom" phrase, though it doesn't have to be.
The objective of the thought-terminating cliche is to stop your brain from processing anything further. It's basically a "don't ask questions because the matter is settled and I've done your thinking for you" kind of phrase.
Here are some typical TTCs we see a lot now:
* class warfare
* free market
* socialist
* too much regulation
The idea is that someone says "he's a SOCIALIST" and suddenly we're supposed to dislike the person. We don't ask, what are his policies? We don't ask, what does he want for our city/state/country? Or someone says "it's the FREE MARKET" and, what? that's supposed to settle it? People are dying for lack of health care and someone says "that's the FREE MARKET" .. and when the TTC kicks in, we just say, "Oh. yeah. Free market. Dying. Well, that's the free market for you."
Or any time one of those bizarre, incoherent rightist economic systems gets brought up (libertarianism, I'm lookin' at you), someone says "x failed because of TOO MUCH REGULATION" and there's no evidence, but when we've internalized TOO MUCH REGULATION as a thought-terminating cliche, we don't stop to ask, "is this so? or is it that it was a badly run business? or is it that a lack of regulation killed off their customers through pollution and corrupt practices?"
So pay attention when someone says something like "tax-and-spend liberal", because they might be using a little bit of secret brain programming on you to try and stop you from paying attention to who's really robbing us blind.
Knowing is half the battle and all that.
Oh? Interesting, I'm in that bottom 2/3's, at least twice a year I am able to schedule appointments with my senator and representative (both Democrat and Republican, and on the national as well as state levels) and have a conversation with them about what is happening, where I, a voting member of the populace stand in regards to what the politician has done and why, what my concerns are and such, as well as where we are going in the future. Some of these meetings have gone for hours. On in particular, my current Senator from what most would consider the "other" party is in the habit of scheduling an afternoon off for these meetings. They think its refreshing to hear views and concerns from an opposing viewpoint that does their research rather than spout off with popular one liners as many people in both parties love to do.
Every time I have done this I have treated them with respect, and they have returned the favor, even if we vehimitly disagree on pretty much everything.
You would also be surprised as to how much research on pretty much everything I do for these meetings, I am always the better prepared.
To say that because I'm not rich I have no representation is ridiculous, I have seen first hand that this is NOT true.
I've been to my state capital for these, and one of these days I intend to make it to Washington DC for a meeting or two. Who knows, I may get a tour out of it...
Try it. Do your research, be respectful not argumentative, don't be afraid to ask the tough questions and have several examples ready rather then just hearsay and opinion, take notes, rinse, repeat.
If more people did this it would be better for everyone.
--- When you start with the conclusion that you want, then throw out any facts that don't agree, is it true?
The nominal median household income has more than doubled since 1980. The inflation adjusted median household income is about the same, but slightly higher (objections to how inflation is calculated are pre-noted).
A definition of middle class that doesn't include the median household is silly. If you want to claim that incomes have been flat, you need to concede (some level of) inflation adjustment.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
When it happens, I'll tell you, or you could tell me now.
That's a rather long-winded way of saying that I shouldn't care because I don't make more than $1 million per year.
My sense was that this is noteworthy because of Buffet's involvement (namely, him sticking his neck out and saying "us rich people can TOTALLY afford to pay more in taxes".) It's a lot harder for the "class warfare" arguments to stick when there's a big name saying "no, seriously - we can afford this, we should afford this, and you guys need to stop being such total wusses about it".
I'm waiting for the Democrats to nail down the big point here - adding taxes to the rich means they go on one less vacation, or having a smaller summer home. Adding taxes to the middle class means that they don't vacation at all, or work a second job to get their kids through school. Adding taxes to the lower class means they start choosing between food and shelter. There's really no moral ground to bitch about a tax hike when the extra money is literally your "screwing around stash".
GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said, "Class warfare may make for really good politics but it makes for rotten economics."
Class warfare, in the strict sense of guns and bombs, is -- like all civil war -- bad for the economy. Labor resources spending time shooting at each other, and getting shot, is potential productivity lost. Similarly, spending time on arguments that have no basis in reality is a waste of resources. There is evidence, however, that reducing the Gini (a measure of income disparity -- higher Gini means higher disparity) in the United States would increase the GDP growth rate. Here is one example set of data:
http://beach.traxel.com/img/gdp-gini-4.png
America's Gini has been rising steadily since the early 1970's (it started before Reagan, because the tax brackets didn't keep up with the rapid inflation resulting from the oil embargo). Our Gini is now high enough to make our PPP (GDP per capita) an outlier. Most nations with our level of income disparity are third world nations. Only Hong Kong and SIngapore -- hybrid economies which mix successful free market economies with the stark poverty resulting from communism -- are in the first world ballpark and have Ginis as high as ours.
One possible reason is this: In any economic system there is an optimal market price to pay for any resource. If that economic system overpays for some resource or class of resources, it will operate less efficiently. There may be systemic biases in place which cause us to pay more for the labor (and/or capital lending) of our wealthy than their labor (and/or capital lending) is worth. Of course the chart above is insufficient to show the causal relationship, but it would explain why our PPP (GDP per capita) growth rate has fallen during the same period that our Gini has been increasing (I have more charts that show the temporal relationship, but they are not yet ready for publication).
If, in fact, the increasing Gini is a cause of falling PPP, then increasing the taxation on upper income brackets would increase the GDP growth rate. If that is the case, and assuming one believes (as I do) that the ideal free market is GDP maximizing, there is only one possible explanation: some degree of progressive taxation actually increases the accuracy of our approximation of the free market, by offsetting a systemic bias.
Disagree? Good, I'd love to see your empirical evidence. Show me the data.
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"Class warfare may make for really good politics but it makes for rotten economics."
He's damn right.
So let's stop the class warfare of the rich vs. the poor. You can do that without "socialism" - but you can't explain why the income of the wealthy 5% grows much stronger than the economy, while the income of the lower 50% grows much less than the economy. You can still be rich, I really don't mind. But you're taking more than your share and that is what pisses people off who are not into socialism at all.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"Class warfare may make for really good politics but it makes for rotten economics."
That is absolutely true. Cutting social programs and then cutting taxes to the wealthy is a very popular political proposition at the moment, and terrible economic policy. Seeing a republican saying the above quote gave me hope for american politics for a moment. Then I realized what he actually meant.
>
Can someone explain to me why Buffett's secretary pays a higher rate than him?
Easy - she has far less disposable income than he does. That means that he has the ability to put his extra money in places that don't trigger taxes. Thus, his effective tax rate is far lower, since he's paying taxes on only the portion of the money he's using.
Well, in a literal sense, sure, you're quite correct. A tax increase on a high income earner is not going to put a serious dent in their status, relative to everyone else around them.
On the other hand, there's another issue worth considering too. Just because someone has earned far more than they need to survive (or to remain relatively wealthy even) doesn't automatically mean their government can better spend some of the excess than they can themselves.
I'm one of those "struggling to hang onto something resembling middle-class" people myself, and honestly, I don't really ever see myself becoming rich in the future, barring some freak lottery or contest winning putting me there. Yet unlike many people, I don't necessarily see the millionaires of the U.S.A. as the enemy, or cause of my problems. It really depends on HOW they attained their wealth.
EG. Many of us have read about Warren Buffet and his proclamations that as one of the wealthiest men in America, he thinks he's not taxed enough and wouldn't mind the laws changing to increase taxes on the very wealthy. At the same time though, if one take a good, long look at how he retains and increases his net worth, one quickly realizes something. Buffet's money is closely tied to Federal govt. sponsored activities including "Green" alternate energy production and military contractors. How do such projects get/stay well funded? By ensuring Federal govt. has enough TAX income to keep supporting them! (Never mind the fact that his own investment fund company apparently OWES millions in unpaid back taxes!)
So IMHO, Buffer is NOT really on my list of super-wealthy folks I greatly admire.
On the other hand, take someone like Steve Jobs? Whether you really like or despise Apple products, there's no denying he earned his wealth through the success of his own business and personal effort marketing his products and services. If anything, the reason Apple Computer has a lot of money tied up overseas is due to the current tax laws. (If a company like Apple opens a facility in another country and starts making money there, they're taxed at a relatively high rate if they bring the money back into the U.S. That results in the smarter business move being to leave that money where it originated and re-invest/spend it there, by way of such things as expanding the overseas operations and employing more foreign labor.) If the U.S. would get smart about things, we'd start allowing that money to be deposited in our banks at a very LOW tax rate to encourage migration of the earnings back here, where the corporate headquarters are for such companies.)
Prices are set by supply and demand.
A tax shifts the supply curve. Depending on the elasticities of the supply and demand curves, this shift might cause a large or small shift in price.
If we lowered corporate taxes, why would Exxon sell petroleum products for any less than it already did?
If the demand is elastic enough, a tax cut might get Exxon to cut prices in order to fight competition from Shell, BP, and state-owned oil companies.
If you excuse the excesses of government because of some limited good it might do (debatable) then you're just evil disguised as a pragmatist.
And here I thought I was nice guy. Anyways good luck with your anarchy...
- I'm not gonna argue, that would be pointless, I'm just gonna lean back and watch my new socialist government offer decent living conditions for long term asylum seekers in Denmark. May God have mercy...
Not really, because nothing is then being made in your country and no one is employed. If anyone does bother to try and make stuff and employ people, they run into the same problems and leave for more attractive labour markets ASAP.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
We can put that money into much needed infrastructure, alternative energy build outs and conversions, and small business.
After a time, that pays off nicely, at which point, the wealthy people have something to buy with the money they have, getting a return on the tax just like they did last time.
Remember kids, "your money" is only worth what "your nation" is.
Blogging because I can...
To put it simpler, when you tax an employee, they raise their required salary to pay that tax.
It doesn't work so simply for jobs near the state-mandated price floor for labor.
So cancel your subscription to America then if you're not using it.
Given the small number of people at the $1M income level, realistically how much money is a surtax going to bring in against the staggering deficit the US has created? Is this an honest effort at increasing revenue or a political effort to point at "Those People Over There Who Aren't Paying Enough" rather than cutting programs like Federal bunny inspectors, etc?
Is it a slow news day? There's nothing at all happening in the world of science or technology that would be more important to the average nerd than this? What about every other bill the President has proposed? I haven't seen those on slash dot
Mod parent up. This is just tax policy news. There's no gadget, there's no advanced math - it's pure politics. This isn't news for nerds, this is news that applies to the general public and in no way applies specifically to nerds.
I'm sorry your crippling autism prevents you from being interested in anything that doesn't explicitly involve shiny gadgetry. Could I make a suggestion? If you don't find an article interesting DON'T READ THE ARTICLE.
All this does is hamper people who may be in the process of starting to become wealthy from actually achieving it.
A much better solution, IMO, would be a *REAL* wealth tax, where one pays an tax that is based on their net worth, including any assets, that is over a certain dollar amount (excluding certain types of personal held property that could be considered common to all, such as one's primary residence), rather than their net income. Their average net worth over the year would be used to determine the percentage of their gross income that must be paid in income tax for that year, rather than basing the income tax directly on income alone.
People whose net worth is below that threshold would pay income tax normally. Arguably, the amount of tax that those below that threshold would have to pay might even be able to go down. The threshold initially used should be determined based on how wealth is actually divided in the country, and should increase nominally each year to account for inflation.
Of course, that smacks of socialism, and America loathes socialism because it's too much like communism.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Well, I'm not an economist, as I said. My field is even less scientific. My guess is that incidence differs under different conditions. In the human sciences, any more consistent result would surprise me.
At a certain point this starts to get into the territory of: go look for the evidence your own darn self. However, because I'm looking for a distraction and I have access to scholarly papers that publish this kind of evidence, I'll point you (and anyone else who's interested, because it's always possible I'm replying to a troll or to a rhetorical question -- those should be banned online, by the way) toward some resources that I've found but haven't read.
You want to know about class warfare? That's when you have people who work fulltime (unlike the unlucky 40 million who can't get jobs or are under-employed) having to rely on food stamps to feed their families because otherwise they can't keep a rented roof over their heads. A federal minimum wage of $7.25, which allows employers to pay wages that employess can not live on, and forcing students to take out huge loans in order to try get a basic education that might allow them to exceed the ridiculous minimum wage, now that is class warfare. There is no American Dream anymore for many millions of American citizens, just dreams of making it to the next paycheck without suffering. Trickle-down economics is class warfare.
I still think the ol' U S of A is the greatest country in the world, and I feel fortunate to have been born here and be doing alright, but I recognize that a lot of things are broken. People here enjoy a lot of freedom, but if we are as civilized as we claim, don't you think we can still do better? If you make a million dollars a year, you should be doing just fine, and you can afford to pay a little bit more to fix America. Stop whining, since with all your tax breaks and loopholes you don't truly pay a higher rate than those of us who only "earn" $30,000 or $60,000. You will need a strong middle class in the future or it won't be long before our nation's time as the world superpower comes to a close, which will be bad for all of us. If we maintain the status quo, with the rich getting richer, the poor staying poor, and the middle class vanishing, your wealth will evaporate in time, floating away overseas, or we'll rise up and take it from you. Rich people have a chance to fix things now before it is too late, if they are not so greedy as to insist on hoarding every last nickel now. The status quo is class warfare, and prolonged class warfare is our road to doom.
Vote for me. I'll work to keep wealthy people wealthy, by convincing them to invest in our future, which will also benefit all in our society. You can keep the power, if you choose to, but you can't have all of everything.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
All kinds of simplistic solutions posted here. "Tax the rich more." "Cut government spending." "Tax corporations more." "National sales tax."
You think there are not real economic experts that have done a few hundreds/thousands permutations of all these things? Yes, then the politics step in, but really there is no one easy fix-all.
Before you ask, no, I don't have a comprehensive solution since I don't even have an economics degree. I know just enough that 1 or 2 steps is not enough to provide a long-term solution.
Flame away.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
You post is so funny. There is no point arguing with you about it, but spasmotic fits of laughter are oppropriate.
Politics is more about sides then ideas. If it were about ideas, then Republicans wouldn't take such an untennable position on this issue.
"Class warfare" and "job creators" are thought terminating cliches, along with "death taxes" and "socialism". These are all actually complex issues, far to complex to talk about in typical political discourse.
Congratulations of being part of the problem!
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
As everyone knows, nerds don't pay taxes!
Sales taxes sound fine at first, but they are way regressive, although there are a few "tweaks" that might make them work, the most important IMHO, is a 100% estate tax on amounts over some limit defined as 10x the median personal worth or something similar.
Of course the truly rich would find loopholes and setup trust funds/etc, but given the right laws i'm sure it would be possible to fix that too. But there isn't any political will, even if the trust funds are blatant attempts at avoiding taxes.
You're right in general, though getting jumped on for your hyperbole.
This will help you get an idea (it's not the real budget -- but it's not far off) of where the US tax money goes.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html
We do spend close to "more than the rest of the world (combined)" on our military (we certainly spend more than the other top 18 spenders combined). We should stop. Not just because it's a fifth of our expenditure (and it's more than that, really, the real costs of the military and the wars they fight are hidden elsewhere in the budget or in places which simply don't show up in the budget at all -- "supplementary appropriations") but because the military takes people out of society and turns them from people who'd earn money and enrich the state to people who cost us money.
If we took half our military budget and popped it into our education budget, we'd be spending roughly SIX times what we currently do on education. I suspect we could come close to promising everyone born in the US a PhD on that budget, if they wanted one. (Some argue that soldiers make better employees. If so, it's the least cost effective way you could imagine to accomplish that goal.)
And as world war one (and modern US history) teaches us, when you have a military, you find places to use it. Which makes all our other costs go up. If we cut our military budget in half, we'd STILL be spending more than the top five countries combined.
See https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures -- it's a little out of date but it gets you the general idea.
If there is indeed a maximum revenue peak at a given tax rate, how do you know which side of it we're on? Further, the soviet union had an effective 100% tax rate for decades before collapse. People still worked.
First off, yes you can live on Min wage. I've done it.
Second, no one is forcing students to take out huge loans for college. I made it through college without borrowing anything. (Stupidly running up credit card bills is another matter however.)
Third you need to define the "American Dream" before you can claim how it isn't available for millions of Americans.
Fourth, if you're going to claim that trickle down economics is class warfare, you should back it up with something. Anything.
And that's just my response to your first sad, sad paragraph.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
The companies you are so eagerly whoring for have had absolutely no problem with off-shoring in the past. Your insinuation that they would keep any additional jobs here is we give them more handouts is rather insulting to anyone with any knowledge of reality.
the baggers out there are wanting to do exactly that.
to the morally bankrupt idiots like yourself who don't like it when your betters prevent you from fucking over everyone else in order to line you own self important pockets. Perhaps if you were able to pretend to be an ethical person, you wouldn't be running into people trying to defend themselves from you quite as much.
"First, companies don't pay taxes. Their customers do."
No, that's not right. An increase in cost is made up by both customers and owners, unless one of the curves (supply or demand) is perfectly flat or perfectly vertical. Even if 100% of the tax is imposed on price [unlikely, due to the prior sentence], unless the demand curve is vertical the quantity sold will decrease, resulting in lower revenue [and profits] for the corporation, despite the higher price.
All of this assumes that the government isn't able to invest the tax revenue in a way which increases value to both the owners of the corporation and consumers. If, for example, the added revenue is used to suppress long term transportation costs [invest in bridges, etc], production costs [invest in education, etc], security costs [invest in police], insurance costs [invest in inspectors, fire service, etc] by enough, it might be that the total gain for both consumers and owners is greater due to the government tax. I'm not arguing that this is always the case, but I am arguing that some amount of government tax and spend is a good thing, lest one wants his nation to look like Rwanda.
P.S. A national sales tax completely screws over the retired -- who paid their income tax back when they were earning more income than they were spending, and who would then have to pay more spending tax than they do now right when their income is close to zero. For that reason alone, it's a no-go.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
" Just taking FAIR to it's logical conclusion..."
Slavery
Just taking UNFAIR to it's logical conclusion...
Middle ground ever?
Are we ignoring the fact that most if the ultra wealthy inherited their money and didn't actually do anything to earn it?
When the boss starts looking for scapegoats (the "rich"), it shows he gave up hope of solving the problem (runaway debt).
Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'
Check the date. It's eerily prescient.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This is very relevant to geeks! This decides if we're going to move closer to or further from a dystopian cyberpunk future. If you aren't planning your post-apocalyptic gear purchases and future career options in cybercrime and data smuggling around this, you aren't paying attention!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Really, do we want the govt taking private money and wasting it on stupid sh1t? I say that if you have more than $1M in earnings you should be forced to show that you spent at least 10% ($100K in my example) in 'Made in USA' goods&services. If you did not, then you forfeit that money to the state. This will get the earners to get something for their money and the money will flow inside the good ol'USA. Someone making $500M/year would need to spend $50M in 'Made in the USA' goods&services.
People seem to think that people who are "rich" must be swimming around in their money bins like Scrooge McDuck. They don't seem to realize that if they don't invest that money, its value decreases.
That is probably why they don't have the understanding of how to build wealth themselves.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
I always thought just a straight tax right across the board for everybody would be the best that way they could not get out of paying taxes because they find the loop holes by hiring the best accountants. This said it would also mean that they could just say 20% right across the board, would also ensure that money be saved from needing so many people to work the system, where as if there is a one line payment for tax, then that is it, no need to hire lots of people to run the government system to review all these laws and make sure all the accounting is done right, you just have 1 line to check...end of story....but that is my utopia,....
In today's world, for sure if you tax someone for becoming successful, it looks pretty crappy to everyone! Being taxed for being good at something is like really stupid.... but at the same time, during these bad times, everyone should be thinking of doing what they can to help...dont ask what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country. In this case, it means if u have 1 million sitting in the bank, for a 1 time "call to arms" ....anyone having 1 million bucks would have to hand over 5000$...end of story....that to me would make sense in a way.
Warren Buffet is always doing charity stuff, gates is doing some , more should too, but to help it's government in time of need...no one wanted to be told that the US credit line was reclassified as being not so good....had they come up with this idea before then, it might have helped.
This is just politic-speak. All that's happening here is a call for the wealthy to donate more to campaign funds to enrich politicians. After a sufficient amount of money has been donated, this legislation will be defeated, vanish, or be crippled by some compromise. Politicians want their pockets lined. By lobbying for this legislation, Obama is increasing the income of the members of various houses. They will then thank him by permitted some compromise down the line, probably in the 6-person deficit-reduction panel.
I shouldn't have to add the detail of "war" to waste and needless spending should I? I thought that was a given. Overall though, they are not producing much but are keeping numerous people and related industries employed around the world.
People have free choice, do they not. Most people claiming what you are, don't think they have any choice, hate Walmart but still shop there because it is cheap. They complain about Best Buy but refuse to shop local and buy everything from online, and then wonder why there are no local jobs and Circuit City went bust.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I've always wondered why we have so few marginal tax brackets. I'd like to see a progressive income tax function created and everyone would pay the integral of that function. Perhaps it could be asymptotic at some maximum income. Of course this would mostly rule out filing by paper. I wish.
The top 240,000 filers earn $1M or more each year. The combined income for those 240,000 is $727B. That amounts to only 1/2 of our annual deficit.
I'm sympathetic to the arguments from Ben Stein (conservative) and Warren Buffet (liberal) who *want* to be taxed at a higher rate. But let's not pretend that it's going to overcome the massive, unsustainable spending that our government engages in.
Ryan is ignorant of economic history. Remember how awful the economy was when Clinton was president?
There is a rather important thing missing from your argument. SPENDING was also addressed in the Clinton era. So those wishing to be intellectually honest in their advocacy of Clinton era policies would advocate both returning to Clinton era tax rates and Clinton era spending levels.
Yeah, that sounds logical. Why don't we just cut the tax rate to 0% and everyone can give whatever they feel is appropriate? Who needs a tax code if everyone can give what they want?
And yet inheritance taxes have been cut to their lowest point in years. Isn't that what "estate planning" is for? You want to reward people for failing to plan for death? When everyone knows that they will, eventually, die?
And you think you've just said something insightful?
The problem is that a lower percentage (even if it is more money) is LESS of a burden than a higher percentage (even if less money).
When you only make $30K a year, 20% is a lot to you.
When you make $30M a year, 15% is LESS of a burden.
Two fallacies there:
1. History would disagree with you. The US economy grew faster when the capital gains tax was higher.
2. We're talking about the US economy. Investing in a company that hires overseas workers has a lesser effect on the US economy than hiring US workers. Even through the capital gains would be the same.
Remember how awful the economy was when Clinton was president? ... Going back as far as 1950, higher top marginal rates are (weakly) correlated with improved economic growth, not reduced economic growth
Academic fail.
Those wishing to be intellectually honest would recall that magic phrase so often used in economics, "all other things being equal". Comparisons to the 1950s completely fail in this regard. In the 1950s the US had very little COMPETITION. This dumbest ideas of a CEO would seem to work in an environment were most of the overseas competition had their industrial based bombed into scrap metal.
Point?
You've exactly described class warfare. One class (that 99%) attacking another (the 1%). The wealthy are simply being treated as an incredibly easy scapegoat.
In other news, the bottom %99 decide the top %1 should pay for their government services. This is the downfall of democracy.
I can only imagine the shock and awe when it only generates %1 of the revenue they expect as the flood of shell companies and offshore activity spikes.
Did you know that already the united state and north korea are the only two countries that take based on citizenship and not residency? Argh.
It seems like no one cares about freedom anymore.
Nobody is going to invade the US, without coming home to a glass parking lot anyway, and all that money is just thrown down a hole
America doesn't have 12 aircraft carriers because they are worried about invasion. They have them for force projection. They allow the US to influence behavior through the implied threat (sometimes carried out) of military force. Parking an aircraft carrier off the coast of a country tends to get the attention of anyone nearby.
I agree that the US spends far too much on its military. I'm merely pointing out that it isn't done strictly for defense.
Buffet is a fraud. He pays less taxes than his secretary/assistant because he pays her in cash and pays himself in stock. Cash and stocks are taxed in different ways. If Buffet was intellectually honest he would be saying tax cash and capital gains at the same level, not increase the marginal tax rates. If Buffet was truly patriotic he would pay himself in cash and pay taxes just like his employees, rather than use loopholes to "cheat" the tax man.
Goddamn Republicans beating the same fucking drum they've been beating for 10 years "Lower taxes and remove regulations so corporations can compete!"
Actually the Democrats had a hand in that. The ever popular Bill Clinton signed the laws removing some of the federal regulations that led to the current financial crisis. But there's more. This legislation signed by Clinton also pre-empted the state's ability to regulate in some of these areas. He nullified state regulations that prevented someone from buying insurance for something/someone they did not have a financial interest in. Some of the troublesome financial instruments that were developed required such restrictions be removed.
Thank you so much, good sir (or lady). The whole "you can't raise taxes because they'll evade it" meme is ridiculous and needs to be shot dead.
If 8% of Americans (the number of millionaires) make more in interest then most do while working all year long, they can afford to pay a larger percentage on that income. If the 100 billionaires in the U.S. can make more than 50% of the populations combined earnings in a single year, they can afford to pay more too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/16/news/economy/millionaires/index.htm
http://www.forbes.com/wealth/billionaires/list?country=225&industry=-1&state=
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Vote them out. Vote them all out. And keep doing it until we find some representatives who are more interested in solving the nation's problems than playing political games with American lives as the pieces.
On a related note. Party loyalty is responsible for many of our current problems. If you loyally vote for *your* party then your party can ignore you because your vote is secure, and the other party can ignore you because they can do nothing to earn your vote. Those who vote based upon a theoretical party platform are a big part of the problem. People need to make politicians realize that they will cross party lines for the slightest reason. This is the only way to make politicians responsive to the voters, to make politicians fear that there is no base they can rely upon.
One wonders why, if raising taxes on .2% of citizens is so good for the remainder, hasn't it been done already. Certainly there should be enough votes among the non-millionaires.
Rather than creating new taxes or increasing them, why not just close some of the loopholes that allow the rich to pay less in taxes than the poor and middle class do as a percentage of their income?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Number of people unemployed: 14,000,000 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
If all the people with an income of 1,000,000 or more hired 60 people, the problem would be solved. Easy peasy. Go for it, "job creators".
...unfortunately, the investments are all on the other side of the world.
Bingo! That's the problem right there.
If they were actually investing in this country we wouldn't have the massive unemployment we do.
And that's the solution. Unfortunately, Obama proposing a "Wealthy Tax" (in other words, punishing the successful for, well, being successful) isn't going to make that happen. If you want investors to invest in this country, you've got to provide businesses with incentives to stay here. Raising the taxes on business, investors, and others who succeed isn't going to do that, no matter how well it sits with the ignorant masses who complain that "it isn't fair!" that someone has more money than they do.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
All this talk of cutting taxes to create jobs ... the taxes have been cut and cut and cut again. Now they are at the lowest point in decades.
Yet the jobs are not being created in the USofA.
The people arguing for cutting taxes to create jobs are incorrectly conflating wealth / income / job-creation.
They are NOT the same.
My previous president imprisoned people without trial and tortured them. Then he tanked our economy.
Against my wishes, by the way.
So please, continue to complain that your current president is some kind of boogie-man.
Class warfare has been made a taboo topic and spun by clever P.R. people so that the masses can't openly and intelligently discuss the class warfare being waged against them for decades. It has gotten so bad that a lot of people are just now becoming aware of it... Anybody who talked about it was attacked, called names and marginalized. It is difficult to do today because it draws attention to the idea which at this phase is bad strategy; the next phase is to blame scapegoats which has been underway for a while. I don't think there is a single plan for the next phase other than to create confusion.
The chart everybody must see before talking about this mess AT ALL: (a few screens down)
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/the-chart-that-should-accompany-all-discussions-of-the-debt-ceiling/242484
Millionaires don't make their money on their own; they require more public resources than somebody on food stamps. People like Trump take big risks for huge gains and go bankrupt OFTEN (as Trump has) and the losses are burdened by the public they claim to have not needed and shouldn't pay for. Corporate welfare costs us more than anything else. No, welfare does not include social security, medicare, or unemployment insurance - they are separate programs that WE PAY for in every paycheck; sure they don't pay out exactly what you pay in, but neither does private insurance does it?? Hell, social security is as close as we've ever come to a FLAT TAX (if you just made it fully "FLAT" it would have too much money; you see, it is basically flat but has a low ceiling so well off people don't put in anything, you don't have to be "rich" to avoid it.) The social security trust fund isn't as individual as an actual trust fund...even then, if the selfish are upset by this, the solution would be a 1:1 ratio and that might make them happy; however, the republicans would still want to kill it because their REAL opposition to social security is that their banker masters want all that investment money to gamble with (along with protections so you suffer for their losses and not them... as usual.)
Trickle down is a bad label today; instead they say "rich provide jobs" which suckers the simpletons who can't see how this is another label for THE SAME THING. Again, DEMAND creates jobs, not supply the rich boss is not going to higher more people because he gets more money, he is going to hire more people to meet increased DEMAND... his GOAL is to cut as much overhead as possible so he can get richer and more powerful. YOU ARE OVERHEAD!!! "Human resource" dehumanizes you to just another material resource-- and the less resources, the lower the cost and the higher the profits. Over produce -- over supply and you drive down prices, profit etc. Yeah, give the rich money so they can hire people to produce more that doesn't sell at an ideal profit ratio... with no public backing of that risk why should they?? They may as well keep the handout themselves and put in no effort or risk.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
And its funny how they didn't think it was wasteful until a democrat was at the helm.
The term you are looking for is: thought terminating cliche.
Lifton writes:
The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
This idiot cannot get rid of his hard-on for more and more taxes. After whacking in the trillion and a half for Obamacare, now he wants another 2 trillion on top of that - and then he wonders why businesses are scared to expand?
Oh - and let me get this straight - the Democrats are going to "save Medicare" - which is already drastically underpaying doctors more than any other insurance - by taking more money out of it? That will save it for Seniors? And this $247 billion more in addition to the half trillion he has already hacked out of it for Obamacare? That's how the Democrats are going to save us from the Evil Republicans? This is what we need saving from!
"We had to destroy the village in order to save it!"
Laffer must be laughing in his grave watching Keynes spin in the next plot over.
In other news, the bottom %99 decide the top %1 should pay for their government services. This is the downfall of democracy.
Democracy is a form of government in which all people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. The 99% imposing something upon the 1% is very democratic.
I can only imagine the shock and awe when it only generates %1 of the revenue they expect as the flood of shell companies and offshore activity spikes.
You are probably right. Unfortunately I doubt the partisan government will make any headway in closing the loopholes that allow such tactics.
It seems like no one cares about freedom anymore.
So freedom is the luxury to swim in a pool of money while the country collapses around your ears? Or perhaps you don't care?
[Citation Needed]
I remember when I first got a "real" job, by which, I mean one that wasn't a paper route or fast food. One of my coworkers was griping about the taxes taken out of her paycheck, when I commented, "That's more than my entire gross income this pay period!" Say what you will about the upper and (upper-) middle classes, but the fact remains, these are the people who are already footing most of the bill for the services that all of us use.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
1, 2, 3......what's really fair?
And this is not a knock on Obama. Here is the inside baseball on the 2012 election:
The Republicans have a vested interest in the economy remaining poor. If the economy improves, Obama will be re-elected. This is almost a certainty, given his favorability numbers. Conversely, if the economy remains poor, Obama stands a good chance of losing.
The people who decide elections in this country are "swing" voters, or LIVs (low information voters). These voters tend to decide who they want to vote for based on their gut feeling, and then find reasons to justify this decision. This is why incumbent presidents almost always win in a good economy, and lose far more often in a bad one. Even if the Obama jobs proposal would completely turn the economy around, and give us all ponies, the Republicans won't let it pass. So, Obama has rolled out this package, knowing Republicans will vote against it, and then will campaign throughout this election cycle on their obstructionism. His only chance is to get those LIVs to think twice at the voting booth - to firmly implant in their minds that Republicans care more about millionaires than them. This jobs bill is not about jobs - it is about exposing Republicans for the obstructionists they (currently) are, in the most public way possible.
You've been enjoying the Kool-Aid, I see.
Yes, there certainly are people who lucked into wealth. But if you think that money just makes itself, I humbly submit that you don't know WTF you are talking about. A few years ago, I worked with the wife of a millionaire. That dude worked his butt off, easily doubling the hours I worked every week. The bottom line is this: Obama has fed you a line of crap, that it's the "evil rich" who are the reason you are a have-not. You can buy that story if you want, but while you might be right that "Working hard is by far no guarantee to get wealthy,", IME, it's the best option out there for those of us who weren't born into wealth. I was flat broke a while back (1995), but I'm reasonably comfortable right now. That's not because the government "redistributed" the wealth "fairly"; it's because I worked hard and paid my dues. YMMV, but I've got no patience for this bitterness against the rich. Working hard isn't a guarantee, but jealousy won't get you anywhere.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
What's your point? That poor people don't pay as much in taxes, in absolute terms, as the upper and middle classes? Is it that even by pure percentage, the poor pay less? Duh. Nobody's arguing the opposite. But it is true that for a poor person, having, say 25% of your income spent on taxes, leaves a lot less left over in real terms than what a middle or upper class person would have left over. Say a poor person makes 500 bucks a month (number pulled from ass). If 25% goes to taxes, then they have 375 left over, which might not be enough to cover rent and food. A person making 2000 bucks a month with the same tax rate would have 1500 left over, which probably certainly covers rent and food and gives them some left over for other bills and disposable income.
It strikes me as strange that it's apparently anathema to have even the slightest discussion about raising taxes a little on the upper class, but it's okay to talk about how the poor just aren't being taxed enough, like that would help them or make a dent in the deficit. You can't get blood from a turnip. I'd be willing to agree that people on the upper end of poor maybe could be moved into a tax-paying bracket so long as that doesn't come with a massive decrease in public services that we, and especially they rely on.
I tend to agree, but there's some devil's advocate arguments that need to be made here
Firstly and most importantly, percentages of population, even overwhelming majority, do not make an action moral. The legislated murder of an innocent person would only affect ~0.00000032% of the population, but it would not be a correct thing to do. Increased tax rates on incomes above $1,000,000 may be [I believe they are] justifiable, but the small number of people affected is not the justification
You start with a number of filing households with various incomes, but then switch to count of persons. Stick to one or the other, otherwise it looks like a textbook statistics lie. I realize that the easily available data from the different sources doesn't match up in units of measure, but that's still an important thing to address.
It's not stupid. It's Advanced.
Eating Ramen 3 times a day in a bad part of the neighborhood with no car, etc. etc. is not really "living."
If you ran up CC debt, you *didn't* make it through college without borrowing.
Everyone knows what the American Dream is and that it's unobtainable by the majority (at all, or without major financial consequences), stop being a moron.
I don't see how anyone could reasonably reject a call for a higher tax burden on $1m+ individuals/corporations, if it is inflation-indexed so that the other 99.8% of earners aren't all paying this tax in 10 years. We don't need AMT 2.0
Defense budget.
paintball
My point isn't that the poor aren't hurting, or that we should tax the poor more heavily. My point is that this thread is full of people vilifying the rich, but the rich are the one who already pay 85% of the tax collected annually (cited numerous times already in my comments; look at my comment history if you need the citation), and that is --sometimes literally -- biting the hand that feeds you (okay, maybe not literally "biting", but literally "the hand that feeds you" anyway).
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Wah wah wah. Cry some more. The top 1% have been fucking the rest for a long time. It's perfectly fair for them to be on the receiving end for once. Cope.
Payback's a bitch ain't it.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
OK.
Today Obama introduced much more than just a tax proposal, in fact some of that is covered lightly in the summary, however the headline is not: "Obama proposes new economic recovery plan" the headline focuses simply on the "Wealthy tax" which is neither a name of a thing or a technical term, it is actually more of a talking point. The only commentary on the plan is simply another talking point from a prominent republican which says pretty much nothing at all about the plan. All of this is designed to whip people into a frenzy. Its much the same on any of the 24 hour news stations or news papers or political websites. Headlines and summaries like that get people all up in arms rather than getting them to a place where they can rationally discuss the implications of the policy.
The reason websites and TV shows do this is because whipping people into a frenzy keeps their eyeballs where you want them. When you read something rational and well thought out (as well as written in a calm and neutral way) you don't usually get into a multi page flame war with someone over it. Those flame wars provide advertising dollars that are critical. Politicians are complicit in this (with their talking points and their reframing and redefining of terms and arguments) because the same thing that keeps people flaming keeps them from thinking, from considering other viewpoints and from finding middle ground.
This is the nature of discourse in our world today. To some degree it has always been like this, but I do think we are getting better and better at fanning the flames. Remember that there was a time when a 24 hour news station seemed crazy... what would they talk about all day. Either there is really a lot more going on (probably not) or these people are getting a lot more milage out of what is going on by keeping people worked up over just about everything.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Why do we even have a tiered tax system?
A lot of small businesses are either simple proprietorships/partnerships or LLCs, for which the profits are taxed as an addition to personal income.
As opposed to C-Corps where they are taxed at BOTH the personal level and on the profits of the business. Essentially double dipping by the government. S-Corps and LLCs pay less tax overall in most cases.
Proprietors and partners will pay these taxes from the cash on hand of the business, meaning that the business has fewer resources to expand and hire more employees.
All businesses pay for taxes with the cash of the business and that isn't unique to smaller businesses. Most small businesses do not have profits in excess of $1 million. If they do have profits in excess of $1 million, I'm happy for them but then they *should* expect a big tax bill and can damn well afford it.
Something about the whole 'progressive tax' thing just seems unfair to me. Some info about me:
- I grew up in a solidly middle-class family. My parents owned a small house and we never went hungry, but we certainly were not wealthy, or even close to it.
- I attended public schools throughout K-12.
- I attended and graduated from a public university. I ended up with a fair amount of debt.
- I then got two graduate degrees, both of which built up some debt as well.
In short, there's nothing extraordinary about my background. At the same time, I feel fortunate to be where I am and recognize things could've been a lot tougher for me. I've played by the rules, saved as much as I could, put off starting a family until later in life, etc., and am now reaping the rewards.
All that said: why should I pay a higher marginal tax rate than a hypothetical person who had the exact same opportunities I had, but is now in a lower-paying job than I am? While I agree that I have a higher -ability- to pay, I have trouble understanding why it's 'fair' that I should. That person could have waited to start a family as well. Or she could have chosen to study a subject where it was easier to get a higher-paying job. Whatever the case, it's hard for me to rationalize that two people with the same opportunities should end up with different outcomes.
I understand how it's different with people who grew up with all of the advantages -- wealthy family, exclusive boarding schools, Ivy League universities, etc. But not for someone who worked their way up the socioeconomic ladder.
I'm not trolling in the least. Please enlighten me.
My userid is prime!
Exactly. The right (or whoever) needs to stop saying that rich is the exact same thing as job creators. They may be the same, but make it explicit.
If you are so worried about taxing job creators out of the area, then stop giving tax breaks to the rich - instead, give tax breaks to job creators. Make it based on job creation, not on income.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
uh huh. Hundreds of times. By you and your pregnant girlfriend?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Rather than taxing the individuals, who are difficult to locate and mobile - why not tax the corporations which are paying the individuals? Why do we have the lowest net corporate taxation in the first world? Why do we continue to have bizarre and absurdly complex tax laws?
I don't know, but it's puzzling.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
Someone has to pay for this country. It isn't vilifying the rich so much as vilifying the silly policies that say that those who own most of the wealth in this country, make most of the income, control most of the resources and derive the most direct and indirect benefit from the government and its services shouldn't have to pay the most for all that. You speak as if it's wrong that the wealthiest pay 85% of the taxes collected, even though they own 90% of the assets of this country.
"but I'm reasonably comfortable right now"
Chance is you're not rich, hence not mooting my point
New taxes by itself rarely reduced the debt. Why? It just gives the Congress another excuse to spent the surplus for 'bridge-to-nowhere' projects.
Cuttting spedning, taxes, AND regulations is the way to go.
It's how you reduced the deficits and boost economic growth.
If they cannot get their spending acts together, new revenue streams will rarely help in the long term.
I know I am not supposed to feed the trolls but this is just too much. Not to mention the comment has +3 insightful. "Government is evil by it's very nature" right... I assume this is coming from an even more warped understanding of the popular lie "more government means less freedom" so I will rebut that. Rebutting the original quote is barely worth the few seconds it takes to say 'what the fuck are you on?'
If more government so obviously correlated with less freedom, we should be able to see that in evidence. Lets take the measures of government to be number of employees, number of pages of legislation, and amount of yearly government revenue. According to this the countries with the most government are all the old countries, ie western and northern Europe and the UK, and also the newer country, the USA which has been adept at enlarging it's government faster than most. Now we compare these countries to the countries with the least government: Somalia, DRCongo, Southern Sudan, Afghanistan, cambodia, haiti etc. These countries have almost no government. As you can see, less government correlates with less freedom, and also more violence. Does anyone have any evidence whatsoever that points the other way?
I can explain why this is in a historical context and what government is actually for, for those of us like Archangel Michael here who failed political studies. Government used to be small and simple, there was a ruler called a king (there are many other titles as well but they all mean roughly the same thing) and in essence just one law: 'the kings word is law'. Some people thought this was unfair, and decided to invent the idea of the constitution, which provided a set of laws that the state and king were bound to governing people's basic rights. This worked so well that the idea caught on and got expanded upon, creating more and more laws to protect the rights of individuals and societies from the abuses of unchecked power. From this came such freedoms as emancipation, suffrage, tolerable working conditions, social welfare, healthcare, police protection, a fair judicial system, etc. The list goes on. The logical fallacy here is that government is being equated with power. More power is indeed correlated with less freedom. But less government results in fact in more unchecked power. Taking away the government does not reduce the amount of power being wielded, it merely takes away the controls on how that power is wielded.
With regard to the tax question, I think someone on this thread should point out that almost a quarter of us children and young people are living in poverty. Perhaps we should contact the UN world food programme.
What I understood of Obama's proposal is the opposit of France Fiscal Shield
In France, whatever is your incomes and wealth, you should not pay more than 50% of your income in taxes. I guess the top bracket in France is higher than 50% and there is also a wealth tax. So if you are rich in property that do not bring you lots of cash (Old castle), that may help you. So they are in the process of removing the shield and reducing the wealth tax.
Obama propose that whatever the deduction you can have, whatever is the source of your incomes, if you earn more than a million dollar, you should pay at least the same rate than middle class americans. That make sense to me.
People may start playing with their money so that they do some do not register as income but If you want to buy a plane, or a house or a cruise ship, you need some income.
I don't know what to think of wealth tax. If the incomes they generates are taxed, why tax the capital? What about the capital of companies?
There is always the inheritance taxes to redistribute them from time to time.
Here in Finland it's a popular right wing strategy to call some taxes "unfair". Most often I hear of how unfair taxing inheritance is, but the same thing can be said about any tax that you personally don't like. Just repeat it enough on air and it will become reality. But when you actually think of it your question does not make any sense at all. The governament has the power and the right to tax you as much as they see fit. Whether it's once or twice or a thousand times doesn't matter at all.
And when I personally think of taxation my personal tax rate has been falling for the last ten years while my income has doubled (from a student to an experienced developer). So - honestly - I think it would be fair if I and people like me would pay more taxes then we pay now. And then we wonder why there is no money to fund anything anymore. I bet your experience in the US is the same - because it's the same right wing policy that is sweeping everywhere.
(And yeah, I do agree that if I was living in the US I wouldn't trust my governament to actually start saving instead of wasting the extra tax revenue.)
Granted, 0.144136526118% is not a lot of people, but how much more cash would they bring into the government coffers with these new tax rates? Is there a way to estimate that with the current census data?
~Syberz
"The only way for our lives to get better is if the rich have less of the money and we have more."
This is 100% false, in a growing economy "the rich" can be rich and it benefits everyone, and everyones wealth and standard of living increases. The main problem with these comments is most people don't understand how an economy works and what really drives it. To educate yourself read http://www.amazon.com/How-Economy-Grows-Why-Crashes/dp/047052670X
Basically:
government spending is bad
higher taxes are bad
regulations are bad
any government job is a drain on the economy
printing and borrowing money is bad
savings are good
interest rates must be allowed to move
deficits are very bad
a strong currency is good
Nearly everyone posting in this topic has it wrong, and are parroting the same baloney principals that have led us into this economic mess over the last 80 years. The next election is probably the last hope to manage the global financial meltdown coming in less than 5 years. Since the world is following US policy of devaluing its currency into oblivion by printing money, all other countries follow suit, in order to reverse this we must lead by example. The only candidate who not only understands that, but actually has integrity and whose actions reflect his beliefs is Ron Paul. Even if he is elected (which I think is highly unlikely) we are so far in the shit I doubt even a full 180 in policy from top down and fast action can save us.
So basically the world economic bus is heading for a cliff with our foot squarely on the gas, Ron Paul is ready to hit the brakes but is chained to the back of the bus by the media, after the bus goes off the cliff the only passengers who are going to land safely are those that hold a gold parachute.
You speak as if it's wrong that the wealthiest pay 85% of the taxes collected, even though they own 90% of the assets of this country.
That's my point, though! People keep saying that 85% of the taxes are owned by those who have 90% (or more) of the resources. To that, I reply: "[citation needed]". I keep posting that the group that pays 85% of the taxes, owns 66% of the resources, and I've posted a citation numerous times in this thread showing where that figure comes from. And people like you keep screaming that the rich should shoulder even more of the burden!
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Maybe the USA should go back to it's "Republic" roots...
When Rome needed money, just kill off a bunch of the rich elite, and take all their money and land.
For factual accuracy I cite the TV series "ROME".
In modern times, it isn't necessary to actually stab them to death, but it is preferable.
I ate normally, it's not hard to budget for food. Ramen was on the menu, but mostly because it was easy and fast to make. Not because of cost.
I ran up the CC on things I didn't need, mostly trying to impress girls, eating out, etc. If I didn't have the CC I wouldn't have spent the money.
I'm not everyone. Please explain what the "American Dream" is. I'd appreciate it if you used small words.
You're not defining it because once you do, we can take the next step and prove/disprove it. I suppose if you'd rather cling to your misery, I won't stop you.
I'm astonished your comment has been voted up to 5. I went to college from 97-2000.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
That begs the question of why unearned income should be taxed at a lower rate than earned income. And don't talk about risk -- working people risk their very lives.
It's not about "hitting Buffett in the pocket"; my pocket is hit twice as hard. Raise the capital gains tax or lower my income tax.
Free Martian Whores!
Yes, I think they should shoulder more of the burden. They are the primary beneficiaries of the system. They practically own it anyway. Why shouldn't they pay for it? Who cares what x, y and z are in the sentence "the top x% own y% of the wealth and pay z% of the taxes" when x is small and y is large? I don't give a fuck that instead of owning 90% they own 66%. The numbers are suspect anyways because a lot of the folks who have a great deal of wealth don't pay much in income taxes by way of loopholes, or just not getting paid in a traditional way, but instead through means that don't result in federal income taxes kicking in. So it doesn't really matter if it's 90% or 66%. They own a lot of the wealth and they ought to pay for that. It isn't punishment for being rich, it's simply asking that those who have the most, benefit the most from the system, pay the most to maintain it. I may have said this in a previous post, but I don't have a beef with the rich, so much as the politicians who seem to be doing their damnedest to destroy the middle class and coddle those who already have everything. It doesn't make sense.
I ask you this: what would be the ideal tax structure in your world? How much should the various income groups and wealth groups pay and for what reason should they pay what you suggest?
I personally think that income ought to be taxed at a slightly lower rate that currently on a progressive scale, and instead we ought to tax non-earned income and non-business assets at a fairly high rate, with additional taxes on large profits by corporations, here or abroad (if you do business in this country, you pay for the right to do business here). That would need to be tweaked according to the realities of the those forms of income and wealth, but the overall goal is to punish hoarding and seeking out obscene profits and personal gains at the expense of the system. If you are spending that money on job creation, corporate growth, infrastructure, etc., then you shouldn't be punished.
Another alternative is to reconsider the tax system. Instead of being a system of penalizing "bad behavior" from the point of view of the government or the prevailing ideology, it ought instead to be simply a system to pay for the public good. Everyone has to pony up, but the system is to benefit everyone. It's not punishment or penalization, it's just the cost of doing business and living here. Workers cost money, goods cost money, having a stable nation with good infrastructure costs money too. It saddens me that the GOP language has turned the discussion on its head. Angry liberal talking points are often not much better, unfortunately.
Yes, I think they should shoulder more of the burden...It doesn't make sense.
In other words, you are telling me, "Even though you have stats and a source to rebuff my claims, I'm going to stick to my intuition, anyway." That's called prejudice, my friend, and that means we are at an impasse on this point. I won't waste any more time debating it, then.
I would, however, debate whether the rich or the poor benefit the most from public services. Think about it for a minute. Public schools? Not the rich; they pay taxes, but send their kids to private school. Public transportation? As if. The rich have limousines to take them where they want to go. Police? Yeah, to some extent...but the rich also hire private security firms and bodyguards, so even this service is likely to be used more by the lower and middle classes than the rich. Roads and other transportation infrastructure? That would be a tough call. Without those roads and infrastructure, no goods could get to market, which certainly would impact the rich, but I would argue that it would benefit the other classes just as much. I'd call it even. I am honestly curious, however, which public services the rich use that makes you think they are primary beneficiaries of the services paid for with their (our) tax dollars?
I ask you this: what would be the ideal tax structure in your world? How much should the various income groups and wealth groups pay and for what reason should they pay what you suggest?
Now that is a good question, and one I've spent quite a bit of time considering. I'm not dead set on an answer, but for now, at least, I'm pretty much in favor of a flat tax across the board for everyone who is at some threshold above the poverty level. That threshold would have to depend upon what the tax percentage is set at, since it wouldn't make much sense to tax the bottom tier of taxpayers at a rate such that their net income sinks below poverty level, but since their gross is above the poverty level, they don't qualify for any aid or assistance. My reasoning is thus: yes, those who can most afford to pay for public services should therefore be paying the most, and those who can least afford it shouldn't have to choose between feeding their kids and paying taxes.
I personally think that income ought to be taxed at a slightly lower rate that currently on a progressive scale...
Okay...not how I would do it, but I don't have any major criticisms of this tax structure so far.
...and instead we ought to tax non-earned income and non-business assets at a fairly high rate, with additional taxes on large profits by corporations, here or abroad (if you do business in this country, you pay for the right to do business here). That would need to be tweaked according to the realities of the those forms of income and wealth, but the overall goal is to punish hoarding and seeking out obscene profits and personal gains at the expense of the system.
But I'm not at all okay with this. Let me ask you a question...what is the difference between a tax and a fine? If you get a fine for speeding, where does that money go? To the state, or muni, or whoever pulled you over, right? And that fine is used to pay for public services, like police departments, road maintenance, etc., right? In other words, it gets used for the "public good" exactly like a tax. The only difference that I can see, is that a fine is a tax for doing something wrong, and a tax is a fine for doing something right. So what you are saying in your argument above, is that you want to fine corporations if they do well ("large profits")? And you contradict yourself -- or at least, you only address half the issue -- when you say that you want these fines^Wtaxes on corporations, whether they operat
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Percentage of people who will take their money overseas to a more tax friendly country: Percentage of households in the United States filing tax returns with incomes of $1,000,000 or more: 0.19959471529%
Percentage of US citizens who will end up paying for this capital flight: 99.80040528471%
(Sorry, a bit late to the game here. I seem to be one of the few who actually have a job where I do something and cannot spend most of my day in this forum bitching about Republicans, the wealthy or any other thing I am envious about.)
Word!
I didn't say just ANY taxes were preventing job creation.
I said taxes ON JOBS were preventing job creation.
Bush didn't lower the tax on jobs at all - it's been 15.3% for over two decades.
It's that special 15.3% tax on WAGES that is the problem. If I hire a worker in the United states, there's a 15% tax on all the wages I pay to the worker, up to a cap of $106,000, ON TOP of their income taxes. That means that if I *FIRE* an American worker, I get those taxes back.
That means that, combined with income taxes, wage income is taxed at up to 43%, while PROFITS are taxed as low as 15%. When I pay you $100,000 and the federal government tacks on $43,000 in taxes, I pay $143,000 to give you a job. But if I fire you, the government only gets $20,000 or so instead of $43,000. So, the more people I hire, the more taxes I pay. THAT is the tax problem.
On the other hand, if I raise income taxes and lower wage taxes, I can fix that problem. If *ALL* income is taxed at 25%, then if I pay you $100,000, you pay the government $25k of that in taxes. If I fire you and keep the $100,000, then I pay $25,000 in taxes. And that's if you don't get $15k or so of free income.
So, under the current tax system, the more Americans you hire, the higher your tax burden is. If we fix the tax system, the more Americans you hire, the LOWER your tax burden should be. Or at least the same.
If we want to encourage job growth, we should get rid of the 15% tax on wages that penalizes employers for hiring people.
paintball
Go read the Capgemini and Merrill Lynch "World Wealth Report 2011". Currently the "high net worth individuals" which are the ~10 million richest people in the world, hold 29% of their $42.7 Trillion, or about $12.4 Trillion in savings accounts and similar (fixed income). They hold another $4.7 Trillion in cash and deposits like gold.
That means that of the $42.7 Trillion only $25.6 Trillion is actively being invested into the economy.
Or in other words, about $12.4 Trillion is locked away in accounts in Switserland, Luxemburg, the Cayman Islands and such, where maybe those banks might indirectly do something with the money, if it's an interest bearing account.
About $4.7 Trillion is literally sitting in a vault somewhere.
I would call that hoarding money.
If I, and 1000 people like me earn $50k and spend it, it's much better for the economy than one person earning $50M and spending $10M. Especially because I'm more likely to spend that money on locally produced goods.
I also don't agree with your definition of "rich". I think that if you spend your money you don't get rich. And if you're rich you'll soon be poor. You either hoard it, or invest it. I think the numbers in the report speak for themselves that this is exactly what rich people do. 40% of the money is being hoarded, 60% invested.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
The biggest disservice to the American people is the American Dream and that one day, they will achieve it. And we all know by statistics above, that conservatively 99% won't. So why are there so many people supporting tax breaks for the rich? Because they can't accept the reality that they most likely won't be rich one day.
Personally, I'd be more than happy if I was taxed at the special $1M tax bracket -- that means I actually made at least $1M that year.
Old Thread, so no one will likely see this, but just how much profit do these 'job creators' need before they start creating jobs?
http://www.businessinsider.com/koch-bros-rachel-maddow-gop-jobs-2011-9
It is similar for many of the wealthiest corporations and people. Record setting profits in the last 5-10 years, yet they continue to lay off workers.