Ten percent. For everybody with absolutely no deductions, classes of income (capital gains, unearned, etc) credits (refundable or none) or anything.
Not to mention the fact that the 10% would not actually bring in enough revenue.
Actually it would. Right now, based upon AGI - meaning WITH those deductions - a flat 10% would be nearly revenue-neutral ($85 billion difference between actual collected and the theoretical 10% of AGI). Eliminate the deductions and we'd definitely have more income tax revenue than we do currently.
But why go with a flat rate? How about everybody pay their fair share? Like when you go out for pizza with 3 friends - you have a $30 bill, you split it 4 ways. Let's take the $3.8 trillion budget and split it 310 million ways and give every one a $12,260 bill for their share of the Federal Government. We all benefit from roads, and the FDA, and space programs and the military. So let's go REALLY flat and equitable and equal shares - every one gets to pony up a $1000 check a month to the Feds.
So while we save "billion" on record keeping etc, where are we going to make up all this lost income? Because that would be a HUGE tax break to me, so I can't really imagine the budget would be even vaguely balanced on the whole.
I'm somehow suspecting the answer is "fuck the poor, let them die", but I'm curious if you have an alternative.
It's not such a tax hit as you think. The AGI in 2009 (after all those deductions) was $7.8 trillion nation-wide. Ten percent of that would be $780 billion. Actual taxes paid were $865 billion - about an $85 billion difference. Chump-change in the face of $1.4 trillion deficits.
Eliminate a single deduction - mortgage interest - and you'd easily have an AGI above $9 trillion, meaning that flat 10% would actually collect MORE taxes. No hole blown in the budget.
Actually, a group of economists crunched the numbers and found that the optimal top marginal tax rate was somewhere between 70% and 85%. So we do know which side of the Laffer curve we're on, and it's the side that means that lower tax rates mean less revenue and higher tax rates mean higher revenue. In other words, just like you'd expect, not the bizzaro world where up is down. And yes, reality backs up what the researchers found: For instance, when Bush cut taxes from 39.5% to 35% in 2001, revenue dropped.
We had those top marginal tax rates in the past - remember when Kennedy cut down from th 90% marginal tax rate? Of course, back then the Federal Government was taking in about half the dollars per capita, in constant dollars - there were a LOT more exemptions. The actual effective tax rate was considerably lower (in 1955-1963, the Federal Government received roughly $3100 per US citizen in 2009 dollars, compared to the $6600 it received in 2009).
Marginal tax rates were much higher, but the effective tax rate was lower because of the exemptions.
As far as the single year of 2001 - there was a little thing called 9/11, and the tail end of the dot-com bubble that caused revenues to drop considerably. Check revenues in 2002 and 2003...
But let's go back to those hey-day years of the Clinton Administration. Look at the revenues the Federal Government had in 1999 - and compare it to the revenues today. About the same. Literally, the Federal Government is making as much money today as it did back in those glory days when all the talk was about the budget surplus. The difference? Spending was VASTLY lower than it is today. The Federal Government has exploded in size in the last 12 years, way beyond inflation, population growth, or any other metric than naked desire for power and control.
If freedom of speech is enshrined in the Viet Constitution, why isn't the Supreme Court (or equivalent) releasing these people and protecting the constitutional law?
Much like here in China (I split time between the US and China), freedom of speech is enshrined in the Vietnamese constitution. However, just like the US, it does not protect you from negative results from your speech - like shouting "FIRE!" in a movie theater in the US will get you arrested. In these fascist oligarchical countries (China and Vietnam) they stretch the negative results to include "political instability" and "lack of faith in the central Government". So you can speak all you want, but if it's determined to foment political instability, then it will be interpreted as generally hurting everyone else and thus you pay the price for the results of your actions.
In the US, we tend to be more liberal in what we interpret as "negative results" of free speech, but you can bet if you published a manifesto detailing your plan to assassinate the President, blow up Congress, and eliminate the Supreme Court that you'll have a heck of a lot of scrutiny and possible legal repercussions as well...
I travel 15-20 times a year (11-12 International trips, balance domestic) and have been very vocal about liberty, and active in the political community. No issues from TSA... I think you're assuming the US Government is more capable and intelligent than it really is...
Right now, Mitt Romney's foreign policy team is the old GWB foreign policy team. How the fuck do you fail that badly and still get to play? I don't even fucking know.
Cool, so it's Colin Powell and Condi Rice? I guess you really don't like black people, do you?
Insider (those who typically own more than 1%, or are active in the leadership of a company) trades - either sells or buys - must be announced at least 1 quarter in advance (SEC rules). Additionally, since he doesn't have all the capital available himself, he needs to get others to invest with him, and given the size of placement it may need to be publicized as well (SEC rules).
The new Intel Medfield processor (X86 based) is very competitive with the ARM architectures when it comes to processing power and battery life. A tablet powered with a Medfield processor should provide plenty of battery life. And since it's X86 based, it'll run all those Windows apps.
3. The fact that the iPhone design was lifted from another product design seen by Apple's team isn't a surprise, it's how all companies work.
4. What is a surprise is that Sony didn't patent their design so they could be suing Apple right now for lifting it.
Maybe Sony didn't patent their design because they are adult enough to realize the veracity of claim number 3? Don't try to force through a patent when what you do is obvious and not novel...
I wear standard Levi's 501 jeans. My Droid 3 fits comfortably in the front or rear pocket, without issue... Modern features, modern specs, even a slider keyboard.
Yes, it's not like something like 9/11 and the Clinton recession affected revenues in that 2001-2002 timeframe. And the Bush tax cuts certainly weren't responsible for the uptick in revenues shown in 2003-2006 in your own graph... Or that you want to keep things in "percent of GDP budget" rather than actual debt dollars. Curious!
You realize that the majority of the debt in the Obama administration was from the wars that the Republicans launched and didn't put on the budget, right?
Citation? The Iraq War cost was $780 billion, or - to put it in modern terms - about 6 months of an Obama deficit. A full 8 years of war is exceeded by 7 months of current deficit spending.
And you do realize that national debt piles up whether items are on-budget or not?
Of course, you're the guy who wanted to compared 6 years of spending to 3, and make the conclusion that we were wasteful during those 6 years and tight during the 3 because the spending in 3 is just under the spending in 6, so...
The budget surplus in 2001 was higher than in 1999, yet the national debt increased more in 2001 than in 1999. The problem is people believing "the budget" has anything to do with reality.
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Ten percent. For everybody with absolutely no deductions, classes of income (capital gains, unearned, etc) credits (refundable or none) or anything.
Not to mention the fact that the 10% would not actually bring in enough revenue.
Actually it would. Right now, based upon AGI - meaning WITH those deductions - a flat 10% would be nearly revenue-neutral ($85 billion difference between actual collected and the theoretical 10% of AGI). Eliminate the deductions and we'd definitely have more income tax revenue than we do currently.
But why go with a flat rate? How about everybody pay their fair share? Like when you go out for pizza with 3 friends - you have a $30 bill, you split it 4 ways. Let's take the $3.8 trillion budget and split it 310 million ways and give every one a $12,260 bill for their share of the Federal Government. We all benefit from roads, and the FDA, and space programs and the military. So let's go REALLY flat and equitable and equal shares - every one gets to pony up a $1000 check a month to the Feds.
Or is that not fair?
Oh god, you're a flat taxer too.
So while we save "billion" on record keeping etc, where are we going to make up all this lost income? Because that would be a HUGE tax break to me, so I can't really imagine the budget would be even vaguely balanced on the whole.
I'm somehow suspecting the answer is "fuck the poor, let them die", but I'm curious if you have an alternative.
It's not such a tax hit as you think. The AGI in 2009 (after all those deductions) was $7.8 trillion nation-wide. Ten percent of that would be $780 billion. Actual taxes paid were $865 billion - about an $85 billion difference. Chump-change in the face of $1.4 trillion deficits.
Eliminate a single deduction - mortgage interest - and you'd easily have an AGI above $9 trillion, meaning that flat 10% would actually collect MORE taxes. No hole blown in the budget.
That's incorrect.
The poor pay over 12% of their income in state and local taxes while the wealthy pay .03%.
The wealthy pay, on average, 24% of their income in Federal income taxes while the poor pay less than 2%.
Actually, a group of economists crunched the numbers and found that the optimal top marginal tax rate was somewhere between 70% and 85%. So we do know which side of the Laffer curve we're on, and it's the side that means that lower tax rates mean less revenue and higher tax rates mean higher revenue. In other words, just like you'd expect, not the bizzaro world where up is down. And yes, reality backs up what the researchers found: For instance, when Bush cut taxes from 39.5% to 35% in 2001, revenue dropped.
We had those top marginal tax rates in the past - remember when Kennedy cut down from th 90% marginal tax rate? Of course, back then the Federal Government was taking in about half the dollars per capita, in constant dollars - there were a LOT more exemptions. The actual effective tax rate was considerably lower (in 1955-1963, the Federal Government received roughly $3100 per US citizen in 2009 dollars, compared to the $6600 it received in 2009). Marginal tax rates were much higher, but the effective tax rate was lower because of the exemptions.
As far as the single year of 2001 - there was a little thing called 9/11, and the tail end of the dot-com bubble that caused revenues to drop considerably. Check revenues in 2002 and 2003...
But let's go back to those hey-day years of the Clinton Administration. Look at the revenues the Federal Government had in 1999 - and compare it to the revenues today. About the same. Literally, the Federal Government is making as much money today as it did back in those glory days when all the talk was about the budget surplus. The difference? Spending was VASTLY lower than it is today. The Federal Government has exploded in size in the last 12 years, way beyond inflation, population growth, or any other metric than naked desire for power and control.
10% was good enough for God, it should be good enough for the US Government.
All sardonic social commentary aside, tax rates, at least on the wealthiest of Americans (that's not you nor I, BTW), is the lowest it's been in over half a century.
Yet those rich pay the vast majority of income taxes, well more than their share of the total income. How much is enough?
And thus Government could execute the blogger as well, for involuntary homicide?
If freedom of speech is enshrined in the Viet Constitution, why isn't the Supreme Court (or equivalent) releasing these people and protecting the constitutional law?
Much like here in China (I split time between the US and China), freedom of speech is enshrined in the Vietnamese constitution. However, just like the US, it does not protect you from negative results from your speech - like shouting "FIRE!" in a movie theater in the US will get you arrested. In these fascist oligarchical countries (China and Vietnam) they stretch the negative results to include "political instability" and "lack of faith in the central Government". So you can speak all you want, but if it's determined to foment political instability, then it will be interpreted as generally hurting everyone else and thus you pay the price for the results of your actions.
In the US, we tend to be more liberal in what we interpret as "negative results" of free speech, but you can bet if you published a manifesto detailing your plan to assassinate the President, blow up Congress, and eliminate the Supreme Court that you'll have a heck of a lot of scrutiny and possible legal repercussions as well...
Yes, the OWS movement... Your right to peaceably assemble stops when it interferes with the right of free movement of tens of thousands of others...
I travel 15-20 times a year (11-12 International trips, balance domestic) and have been very vocal about liberty, and active in the political community. No issues from TSA... I think you're assuming the US Government is more capable and intelligent than it really is...
Right now, Mitt Romney's foreign policy team is the old GWB foreign policy team. How the fuck do you fail that badly and still get to play? I don't even fucking know.
Cool, so it's Colin Powell and Condi Rice? I guess you really don't like black people, do you?
In 2009, an AGI of $1.3 million put you in the top 1%. With an income of $5.5 million in 2009 Barak Obama was most certainly well in the 1%er category.
What? Next you're going to claim this photo is real!
Insider (those who typically own more than 1%, or are active in the leadership of a company) trades - either sells or buys - must be announced at least 1 quarter in advance (SEC rules). Additionally, since he doesn't have all the capital available himself, he needs to get others to invest with him, and given the size of placement it may need to be publicized as well (SEC rules).
The new Intel Medfield processor (X86 based) is very competitive with the ARM architectures when it comes to processing power and battery life. A tablet powered with a Medfield processor should provide plenty of battery life. And since it's X86 based, it'll run all those Windows apps.
3. The fact that the iPhone design was lifted from another product design seen by Apple's team isn't a surprise, it's how all companies work.
4. What is a surprise is that Sony didn't patent their design so they could be suing Apple right now for lifting it.
Maybe Sony didn't patent their design because they are adult enough to realize the veracity of claim number 3? Don't try to force through a patent when what you do is obvious and not novel...
Looks like the gelatinous cube got you first...
It was so he had a tweetable version of what he wrote...
I wear standard Levi's 501 jeans. My Droid 3 fits comfortably in the front or rear pocket, without issue... Modern features, modern specs, even a slider keyboard.
The Clinton recession.
And? How does that counter the fact that the entire cost of the Iraq war is about 6 months of the current Administration's annual deficit?
Fiscal years run October 1st to September 30th; you need to look at the fiscal year, not calendar year.
Yes, it's not like something like 9/11 and the Clinton recession affected revenues in that 2001-2002 timeframe. And the Bush tax cuts certainly weren't responsible for the uptick in revenues shown in 2003-2006 in your own graph... Or that you want to keep things in "percent of GDP budget" rather than actual debt dollars. Curious!
You realize that the majority of the debt in the Obama administration was from the wars that the Republicans launched and didn't put on the budget, right?
Citation? The Iraq War cost was $780 billion, or - to put it in modern terms - about 6 months of an Obama deficit. A full 8 years of war is exceeded by 7 months of current deficit spending.
And you do realize that national debt piles up whether items are on-budget or not?
Of course, you're the guy who wanted to compared 6 years of spending to 3, and make the conclusion that we were wasteful during those 6 years and tight during the 3 because the spending in 3 is just under the spending in 6, so...
The budget surplus in 2001 was higher than in 1999, yet the national debt increased more in 2001 than in 1999. The problem is people believing "the budget" has anything to do with reality.