Tax the rich

[tothemax93]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI04B3BJ54c

Well worth watching. It gives you a real perspective on the amount of money being spent, and why we can't survive with these policies.

 

[ZackDaniels]

This would be a scary thing if national debt actually worked like that. Fortunately it doesn't.

In 2000 there was a proposal to pay debt down to 0 and it was actually a rather scary idea. This country will never be completely without debt, and that's OK because it has no comparison to a household budget despite repeated attempts to compare it to one.

We have too much debt, but the majority of it is debt we owe ourselves. It's a problem, but it's not a problem resembling the one talked about in that video.

 

[ouchez]

THE RICH NEED TO PAY A HIGHER RATE, but it will do no good if spending is not corraled,,,no good at all. We first must cut back on military spending and get out of the wars while protecting our borders with some of the troops coming home. We simply cannot afford the wars.

We also need to raise the rate of income subject to SS withholding to $250,000 and cut back on benefits to only go to retired folks and none to dreamed up added benefits like kids with ADD, Disability, children under 18 to people receiving SS also get big benefits and that should not happen. Pols bought votes by adding many people, benefits, to the SS wagon and now the axles are ready to break.

Aid to Women on welfare must stop at 2 kids, stop the baby mills, we can't afford them.

Then cut all other spending by 10% and freeze spending for 5 years. Also all retirees must begin to pay 20% OF THEIR HEALTH CARE PREMIUMS, all of them.

Also everyone must pay some tax, even those on welfare. No more free rides.

O

 

[ZackDaniels]

It's not as simple as just higher rates on simple income tax. The higher rates hit the middle class more than the upper who make a ton of money on investments and things that the middle class doesn't have enough income to make work for them. See: the CEO's that make $1 a year in straight income but receive millions on investments and other means.

Largely agreed.

Drawing lines at number of children won't happen. It's just too big brother to get any serious level of support. Aside from that though there are legit people who have more than 2 kids and fall on hard times. They should not suffer because some abuse the system.

A lot of retirees are on fixed income, meaning a piddly amount of savings, and disability or SS checks. Asking them to pay more when their income comes from the government in the first place doesn't fix anything.

Look at the VAT which is a national sales tax that gets passed directly to the purchaser. Traditional sales tax is paid in part by the business but this would not be and it would be set at a national rate. That means welfare and illegal immigrants pay fed tax one way or another. Since it's a fixed rate it by nature hurts the poor more ($10 a week to somebody making 20k a year hurts way more than somebody making 200k a year). There would have to be a voucher system or exclusion from groceries and budget/second hand clothing to prevent people just barely getting by from needing welfare assistance to cover the additional tax... and thus being as ineffective as the above.

 

[ouchez]

ZAK,

Unless you are willing to chop away at everything nothing will get done, we all need to sacrifice.:clapping:

As to the rich, I would view them as over the $300,000 mark per year.

I also would subject capital gains income to the income tax rate beyond a certain point.

Yes, I am for overhauling the entire tax system, but until then, my plan is a solid start.

Unless we take hard actions, we are going down and in a violent fashion.

O

 

[Rusty McNeil]

Tax the rich?
Obama has succeeded in the class war

So many people think the rich don't pay their share that the class war has been won.

Our tax system is already INCREDIBLY progressive, making it even more so, pushing the load further up the ladder to those few who already pay the biggest majority of the taxes already, will not do anything but make some poor and lower income people feel better.

The "rich" already pay more percentage of fed tax collected as it relates to percentage of total us income now.

And what the hell is rich?

And, here's one for you

I say tax the poor

EVERYONE should pay tax on their income, period.

It is true that 47% pay no tax. I've probably posted that on this forum a dozen times in the last few years. It's straight from the IRS.

Why should anyone, and I mean anyone??? Get a free ride in the tax game because they make less???

Sure there are a few anecdotal stories of the rare few rich who pay low rates due to living entirely on investment income. But most we think of as rich are ass busting folks who work twice the number of hours others do and invested years and big $$$ into training to make themselves really useful.

Unlike the anecdotal few rich tho there are almost without exception millions of people on the other end who pay zero taxes by merit of the progressive nature of our tax structure.

Lets take retires and disability folks eyc. out of that 47% and the number goes down to around 35% of folks that are working, collecting a paycheck and paying zero tax after filing or getting a "refund" that's more than what was paid in. (EITC) I call that welfare.

Those who aren't paying taxes have no skin in the game, that's pretty basic.

 

[Rusty McNeil]

And that video is not about paying down the debt. It's about deficit, annual deficit, and is used to demonstrate that in spite if what people think you could gut the rich and not only would it not help the debt problem it wouldn't even run the country for a year.
A clear demonstration we have a country addicted to spending and a populace addicted to government, and politicians addicted to buying votes with our tax dollars. It's very easy to be generous with other people's money.

 

[Rusty McNeil]

The level of income subject to SS withholding should NOT go up since past a certain level the SS benefits don't go up as well, amounting to yet one more forms of redistribution of wealth. Why should a rich man pay more SS withholding if the benefits for him don't go up?

Do certain citizens have some sort of god given rights to the spoils of another mans effort??

 

[ZackDaniels]

Those numbers refer to the federal income tax. That's not the only tax people pay, they still pay payroll tax, SS, local taxes of all kinds, etc.

 

[Rusty McNeil]

Those numbers refer to the federal income tax. That's not the only tax people pay, they still pay payroll tax, SS, local taxes of all kinds, etc.

Everyone pays those "other" taxes without regards to income. Making it a zero sum argument. Those effect everyone and are only useful to blur the argument whenever Federal income tax is being talked about.
An argument of course CAN be made that sales tax hit lower income people harder since they are forced to spend a higher percentage of their income to merely survive. But I'm ok with that since its one of the few taxes we have that's not progressive so helps tilt the balance back a little from what I consider an overly progressive federal tax system that punishes hard work and success.

The discussion is about income taxes which effect everyone differently.

The media did a really good job of using those "other" taxes to muddy the waters and confuse the public on that issue.
Just as they did by repeatedly comparing a few certain "rich" individuals EFFECTIVE tax rate against multitudes of other lower earning folks tax BRACKET, i.e. warren buffet and his secretary, but not clarifying the difference of the two.
Those situations can only be mined against a few rare individuals anyway, even the media admitted that somewhere on the very back page.

Most people's effective tax rate is way less than their tax bracket. I'm in the 28% bracket and my effective rate is less than 20%,
How is someone in the 28%+ range paying < 20% effective tax not paying their fair share when compared to someone in the 25% range paying an effective 16% or someone in the 15% range paying an effective 9%

The system is already progressive enough.

I just don't get this class warfare tax the rich mentality. I never worked for a poor man.

 

[dannymax]

ZAK,

Unless you are willing to chop away at everything nothing will get done, we all need to sacrifice.:clapping:

As to the rich, I would view them as over the $300,000 mark per year.

I also would subject capital gains income to the income tax rate beyond a certain point.

Yes, I am for overhauling the entire tax system, but until then, my plan is a solid start.

Unless we take hard actions, we are going down and in a violent fashion.

O

Isn't that a direct quote from Michele Obama's play book? Was that before or after the $747 lunch of lobster & filet mignon?

Everyone pays those "other" taxes without regards to income. Making it a zero sum argument. Those effect everyone and are only useful to blur the argument whenever Federal income tax is being talked about.
An argument of course CAN be made that sales tax hit lower income people harder since they are forced to spend a higher percentage of their income to merely survive. But I'm ok with that since its one of the few taxes we have that's not progressive so helps tilt the balance back a little from what I consider an overly progressive federal tax system that punishes hard work and success.

The discussion is about income taxes which effect everyone differently.

The media did a really good job of using those "other" taxes to muddy the waters and confuse the public on that issue.
Just as they did by repeatedly comparing a few certain "rich" individuals EFFECTIVE tax rate against multitudes of other lower earning folks tax BRACKET, i.e. warren buffet and his secretary, but not clarifying the difference of the two.
Those situations can only be mined against a few rare individuals anyway, even the media admitted that somewhere on the very back page.

Most people's effective tax rate is way less than their tax bracket. I'm in the 33% bracket and my rate is less than 20%,
How is someone in the 33%+ range paying 20% effective tax not paying their fair share when compared to someone in the 25% range paying an effective 16% or someone in the 15% range paying an effective 9%

The system is already progressive enough.

I just don't get this class warfare tax the rich mentality. I never worked for a poor man.

And there you have it....leave the rich alone, they built this country! And leave the retirees alone, they kept it going and already paid their dues!

Scrap this liberal idea that increasing taxes somehow creates jobs & prosperity....it doesn't, it simply makes government larger and more powerful.

How about this for a plan.....
-Close the borders (everybody agrees on that)
-Be a little more selective about what wars we get involved in....and let the military do the fighting, they understand how it's done.
-Grant huge tax incentives for developing the technology to remove oil from the Bakken Reservoir.
-And huge tax incentives for any company that employs 10 or more people.

"Tax the rich", "Take back wall street"....etc., etc.....! The fast lane to destruction, right there!

My biggest problem with the liberal mentality is they seem prone to eating their seed potatoes! Not a good idea. :Flush000:

 

[ouchez]

Obama is trash, Romney is trash and so are both parties.

But,,, if we are to survive in some fashion something has to be done, and fast or we will have blood and the super rich will be the first to bleed.

If you are a billionaire or have hundreds of millions you need to be taxed heavy, and redistribution of wealth has been going on in this country for a long time.

If you are a billionaire or have multi hundred millions you are a pig, do not deserve it, are probably crooked or into near slave labor manufacturing, or pay your workers far below what you should.

Why billionaires now instead of millionaires,??,,think about that you guys who think the super rich are so damn wonderful,,,think how they got it, and how they are holding on to it.

We actually have an argument here that we not dare limit a women to welfare payments to two kids and no more,,if we can't stop that abuse of that system we are fools,,,and thanks to LBJ to starting that problem.

Alot of white self haters and blacks and mexicans are always spouting off how they, blacks and mexicans, will soon be the majority, black vote for blacks, mexicans for Obama, and whites commit suicide by not voting all white and put in people who revel in the coming dissoloution of the white majority that built this country. it is like a Jew cozying up to the Nazi. I would like to shove it right up their ass and have the whites go crazy with having babies,,,,and if we cannot limit the welfare to two,,,than I say bring on the white babies and save this country and get the same welfare as is given to the baby mill mommies.

What happened in Yugoslavia is coming here, unless............

O

 

[ZackDaniels]

Everyone pays those "other" taxes without regards to income. Making it a zero sum argument. Those effect everyone and are only useful to blur the argument whenever Federal income tax is being talked about.

You can't just ignore local taxes when talking about this. The state, county, and city is what handles most of what you see every day as 'government'. Police, fire, infrastructure, schools, welfare, etc. The fed budget/taxes serve as a pool the state can draw from when they need it, but that's on top of what the state already gets. They're very much part of the picture and why there's no additional fed tax for such a large % of Americans.

It's straight up misleading to ignore it when talking about who should pay what.

The current 'eat the rich' attitude stems mostly as blow back from the wall street bailouts. The economy was crumbling and people's 401k plans were getting halved as they simultaneously lost their jobs. At the same time they were reading about AIG taking resorts for their management team and CEO's getting paid $18 million for working less than a month and then shutting the company down. Their homes that they had been repeatedly told 'never lose value' lost as much as 2/3rds their value by the companies run by the same people making headlines daily for parachute packages.

Everybody collectively did a double take at that whole setup and a lot of people got outright pissed. A lot of people still are, but it seems a lot have forgotten why.

And that video is not about paying down the debt. It's about deficit, annual deficit, and is used to demonstrate that in spite if what people think you could gut the rich and not only would it not help the debt problem it wouldn't even run the country for a year.

It's trying to pay deficit in a year by ignoring debt exists and can be managed. It's a colorful demonstration but that's not how it works.

 

[Rusty McNeil]

No offense Zack,
I'm just going to agree to disagree with you on all this and move on. It's been a good discussion and you're obviously quite intelligent, but were poles apart on this one and will never change each others minds. I guess its a good example of why there are multiple political affiliations or attitudes.

I love you like the Vmax brother you are and that's all that matters in the end anyway.

How bout those new Gen II's ??

Regards,

Rusty

 

[ZackDaniels]

I'll agree to that

 

[gamorg02]

thank you to all for keeping this civil.

 

[Rusty McNeil]

thank you to all for keeping this civil.

I figured you were getting nervous ; )

 

[hubeerjw]

2 words......


FLAT TAX


It is simple
It is easy
It is fair
It would work

.... thus it will never be utilized :bang head:

 

[ZackDaniels]

It's been proposed but there are problems with it. Namely in the fair dept.

Look at the VAT which is a national sales tax that gets passed directly to the purchaser. Traditional sales tax is paid in part by the business but this would not be and it would be set at a national rate. That means welfare and illegal immigrants pay fed tax one way or another. Since it's a fixed rate it by nature hurts the poor more ($10 a week to somebody making 20k a year hurts way more than somebody making 200k a year). There would have to be a voucher system or exclusion from groceries and budget/second hand clothing to prevent people just barely getting by from needing welfare assistance to cover the additional tax... and thus being as ineffective as the above.

Something like that may happen, but it won't be entirely simple and it will likely be in addition to (not replace) income tax.

 

[max_caper]

This is a really good discussion! No name calling or anything! Most of what I know about the US economy comes from CNN and Michael Moore films; entertaining but not necessarily based in fact!

This discussion is very enlightening.

Blaine