text:
It's not about "who benefits from these tax changes". It's about the incentives created or destroyed with these changes. Obama's changes would simply give the "middle class" a pat on the back for nothing. McCain's cuts on the top marginal rates would increase incentives to invest, save, and become more productive.
I like McCain plan better — it encourages people to be more productive and work harder. Keep in mind that the bulk of tax payers are not the top 1 percent by income but the top 2-24%. Ane believe me, we are anything but super-rich.
Furthermore, McCain plan improves everyone's standing. Obama plan robs Peter to pay Paul.
The purpose of taxation is to raise the necessary government revenues to be able to pay for the most needed spending (defense, infrastructure, education, etc.) The purpose of taxing citizens IS NOT to reduce inequality or to redistribute income from the more successful to the less productive. We've got to change our tax code to make it simple, fair, pro-economic growth, and as low as possible. The best way to do this would be to implement a flat tax. However, this is not politically feasible because apparently paying the same percentage on a much higher income is politically impractical. And this is coming from a middle class person who would benefit from Barack Obama's tax policies, which are nevertheless unfair and lead to disincentives to productivity, job and wealth creation, and a desire to get ahead by all citizens- which in turn produce a thriving economy.
Well, let's do it this way: Messrs. McCain and Obama, please explain the policy behind your proposal by answering this question — should the death tax rate be: a)0.00%, or b) 100.00%?
The US loses either way.
Mary's Mound
The top percentage of wealthy people receive more benefits from, and have more access to, the American system–more than the middle class and poor. Therefore it's only fair that they pay more back into the system via taxes. Under the conservative system, these wealthy 1 percenters are allowed to free load on the backs of the rest of us. As for working harder? Please. The wealthy are collecting income from stock investments–they're not lifting a finger. The real workers are the people that have three minimum wage jobs or a single 60 hour a week office gig who can't afford to save anything or invest for themselves. Why should they support the rich?
Let me also add that, as a member of the middle class, I in turn receive more benefit from the American system than the poor, and I probably get a lot more back from America than I pay in with my taxes. I would consider it a patriotic act to pay more.
If the bottom 50% of wage earners should pay less taxes and the top 50% (who btw pay 96.09% of all taxes collected) should pay more how much more should they pay. What is considered enough from you left thinking ppl? The bottom pay little or no taxes for the same opportunity. They could have gone to college and earned degrees and then became productive citizens. PPL, life is about choices. You can choose to be a non-contributer to society or you can be productive and the reward is you get to "earn" your winnings ($$$).
Hey AMCT at 12:31,
A couple questions for you:
1) How exactly do the wealthy benefit more from (& have greater access to) "the American system"? Seriously. Specifics please; not just broad-brush pamphlet pablum.
2) Why is income from investments any less morally defensible than income from physical labor? How is it that labor income is legitimate, but investment income is freeloading? If we follow the logic of your proclamation, then thos poor, owrking class folks who manage to save a few bucks should NOT be paid interest on their savings accounts – that, after all, is investment income!
I don't want to put words in AMCT's mouth, but some arguments I would make for the rich receiving more societal benefits than the middle class and poor are:
-Infrastructure: everyone benefits from roads, as they increase our mobility. However, the rich (i.e. business owners) receive extra benefit in that they are able to capture larger market for their products. In the absence of transportation, all business is local and no one individual would be able to obtain the levels of wealth seen today.
-Legal enforcement of property benefits those with lots of property the most.
-Military operations that promote a pro-American agenda benefit those who stand to lose the most were America to lose its pre-eminent position in the world.
Certainly there are payments made to the less fortunate in America, but these are overwhelmed by the enormous benefit the wealthy obtain by the existence of a stable government. The wealthiest have the most invested in seeing the system continue to flourish.
Typical conservative extreme logic that ALL taxes are bad. It is possible to tax in a way to encourage R&D, create jobs, etc. Taking money from the wealthy is not necessarily a bad thing. And the growing inequality is also bad for the economy as it makes for an unstable economy. Warren Buffett understands this.
BTW, the "death tax" is a good thing for conservative thinkers, they just can't get past step 1. Handing cash to your heirs does not promote investing. Wealthy people should be encouraged to invest their money, be entrepreneurs, create jobs, etc. before they die. More Paris Hiltons is not good for the economy. Warren Buffett understands this too.
The people who don't understand it are the people who took Econ 101 and stopped, then registered as Republicans and then whine all day about how their "hard work" is being discouraged.
You're just arguing in favor of communism…
Infrastructure: so, I'm extracting more value from a road by driving a motor vehicle on it than you by merely walking on it? Sorry, but mobility is no guarantee of success. However, the "distribution advantage" of the rich Wal-Mart actually benefits the poor by proviging the same goods cheaper than the poor would have to pay from "local-locked" merchants!!!
Property rights enforcement: is the same for 2 acres as it is for 2 million acres. Your statement makes no sense.
Military ops: again, your statement makes no sense. America's success in the world is the tide that raises all boats…
The "Flat Tax" doesn't work. Economists generally all agree on that. It makes sense to people who can't figure out basic math. If you do the math, you'll find that the flat tax rate would be 30% or more to generate the same tax revenue. Simple yes, but it's not a tax cut. And worse, it discourages things that the government should encourage, such as investing, owning a home, etc.
There's nothing wrong with our current tax system. If you can't figure out how to do your own taxes, you probably aren't smart enough to have money in the first place, so it doesn't matter. I've been doing my own taxes since I was 16 and I'm far from a genius.
As much as I loathe the Paris Hilton's of the world, their profligate ways do indeed spread the wealth around.
The people who don't understand it are the people who took victimology rather than Econ, then registered as Democrats and then whine all day that they don't get something for nothing.
Hey Fred Flintson – Economists do NOT generally agree that the FLAT TAX does not work. And the point that you would need 30% rate to get current revenue is invalid, since the LOWER flat tax will create MORE revenue, as has been proven by tax cuts (tax cuts INCREASE revenue) AND by other countries who have tried the flat tax. Countries that have tried the flat tax have seen INCREASES in revenue, & their rate is LOWER than what it was… i.e., their flat tax was actually a 'tax cut' in rates.
You might be mixing up the 'flat tax' with a 'consumption tax' (national sales tax) system…
You're right Mr. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Paris Hilton generates lots of revenue for luxury goods makers. Unfortunately, that's a tiny percentage of the economy. The employees of those companies are few, so they don't spread their money down the chain. Worse, the money stops growing. If the Paris Hiltons of the world were smart and created new companies that generated more wealth, I'd be all for abolishing the "death tax". Unfortunately, there's no evidence that successful wealthy people give birth to future successful wealthy people. As we know, wealth is generally created by poor and middle-class people (why wouldn't it, there's more of them so the odds that they will create and innovate are high) who are trying to become wealthy, not by wealthy people trying to stay wealthy.
Tax cuts do not increase revenue. Capital Gains tax cuts increase revenue. However, that's NOT to say that Capital Gains Tax Hikes *decrease* revenue. Conservatives always forget that part. There is absolutely no correlation between an increase in tax revenue and across-the-board tax cuts. But tax revenue isn't the issue, is it? It's the economy we care about. Smart tax cuts and smart tax hikes can improve the economy, holding tightly to the notion that all taxes are bad is foolish and unrealistic.
CCR, is the vitriol really necessary? I'm trying to honestly debate you here. The knee-jerk accusations of communism are laughable and I would imagine not particularly coercive to other readers. My general point, which you attempt to refute with exclamation points, is that "America" (and the corresponding laws, order, public works, etc.) is beneficial to everyone living here, but it clearly benefits the wealthy more. I can't imagine this being a particularly controversial statement. No other society in the history of the world has allowed people to obtain such enormous wealth. Shouldn't the wealthy have a vested interest in seeing that America the society remains strong?
You bring up a good argument in the fact that America's wealth does benefit the poor of the country as well. I certainly wouldn't dispute that notion. Poverty in 21st century America is way better than being poor at any other time in history. However, people care about relative wealth as well (see, for example, the _other_ Robert Frank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Frank).
A society in which everyone gets richer, but some people are getting too far ahead is an inherently unstable situation. An even worse situation (that we now face) is one in which those at the bottom are not benefiting from the overall gains in the economy.
When you face difficult circumstances as we do right now (public debt, economic weakness, growing inequality), I would argue that we need to invest more heavily in the things that will make America strong again – education, technology, infrastructure. And based on the current state of affairs, those investments will need to come _primarily_ (note that I don't say entirely) from the wealthiest individuals.
Along EA's line of reasoning….
The notion that the wealthy will stop investing or stop creating business because of higher taxes is wrong. The only people who argue this are not wealthy people. Wealthy people aren't deciding between taking a minimum wage job and building a business, they are deciding between building a business and giving their money to someone else who is building a business. They don't like higher taxes, of course, but they aren't going to stop investing because of it. Higher taxes on returns just encourages them to work harder to generate even higher returns (and everyone benefits from that, I'm sure we can all agree). Conservatives would have you believe that they will sit on their cash and let it be eaten by inflation because they hate so much to let the government spend it.
The wealthy have greater access to public resorces?!?! Are you kidding me? If anything, the poor are favored when it comes to the government paying for their college tuitions, giving them rebates, taxing them at minimal rates (if at all). And as for the wealthiest 1% freeloading on the backs of the rest? You've got to be kidding me. They pay an extraordinarily high percentage of all taxes in this country, so please get your facts straight and stop writing nonsense.
Bunch of clowns, no one said that the wealthy have greater access to public resources. The wealthy have greater access to the things that help them to get wealthier, such as better schools, better healthcare, etc. because they can afford them. Vicious circles spiral upward as well as downward.
If you're arguing that the poor should have worse educations because they can't pay for them and no one else should be expected to pay for them, you're incredibly myopic. If you think that the US benefits from having a nation of increasingly less wealthy and hence, increasingly uneducated people, you're foolish. The best thing we can do for the US economy is to help out the poorer of us so that they can get above struggling for the basics (food, shelter, etc.) and start working on building a strong economy for the next 200 years.
Before anyone argues that the poor in the US are still better-off than other countries (which is true in the sense they have more TVs), look at education levels worldwide. The US is clearly falling behind the rest of the world in education. If taxes don't pay to educate the poorer 99.9% of the US population, then the wealthy better start having 100 times more kids to make up for it!
I just dont understand – i drive on the same roads, get protected by the same military, abused by the same people at the dmv, etc etc. in fact my family doesnt put a burden on the gov't healthcare system or even public school system, but i certainly pay more than my share. why am i going to be taxed even more.
do i get what I pay for, odds are that you won't be taxed more, because your understanding of the English language tells me that you're not bright enough to be in the upper 1%. So good news, you'll get a tax cut no matter who wins the election! :-)
For those in the top 1%, you have to pay more because you earn more. And you earn more because our economy is strong enough to support your business and partly because of the government and the other 99% of the people in the country.
However, if you live in a vacuum and your success was done 100% by your own doing, you didn't need the US government to keep your economic system alive, and you earned your income when it fell from the sky, you shouldn't have to pay higher taxes. But if all that were true, you don't live in the US (or even on Earth), so you won't have to pay higher US taxes.
One of many reasons I won't vote for Obama is because of his negative stance on being a Muslim. His father was born a Muslim and he in turn is one, no matter how much he would like to distance himself from the religion. Obama, be proud of who you are no need to be ashamed.
Side note, religion is a choice, not a genetic trait. Science is hard, I know. Intelligence, however, is genetic. I'm glad to see that you are proud enough to demonstrate your lack of it here. ;-)
The top 1% are already paying more taxes. So, how much more should they pay (70%, 80%, 90%, 100%)? Also, capital investments will flow to its most productive use, and that includes foreign countries with lower tax rates (hello illegal tax shelters). If that is the case do you still support higher taxes?
That's it Fred; you are an idiot. I want a divorce. You can keep Dino.
See Fred, if you had listened to Barney and I then you wouldn't be in the dog house with Wilma.
The more you try to tax the top tier, the more they just send that money to work somewhere else. Check out WSJ's The Corporate Tax Windfall (7/1/08 Page A16, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121486763043717547.html?mod=Review-Outlook-US). It shows how large corporations under tax advice proceed with tax hikes. Similarly, personal tax revenues would be greater in the US if the income wasn't loopholed into offshore tax havens. This is what would happen under Obama's plan. The rich didn't get where they are by backing up the truck into the White House. They back up the truck into the private sector who leases the White House for 4 years… I mean… who hire lobbyists in a fair, practical manner…
I am a high school math teacher, and Fred Flintstone is exactly right. Whenever I see a student who is performing very well in class, I take ten points off his test and give it to the worst performing student. I figure the high-performing student is obviously receiving more benefits from society, school, and the other students. What else could account for his high achievement? This student needs to pay his fair share for these benefits, so I take the points. Maybe 10 points is not enough, though, because the gap between him and the bottom student is still a disturbing 40 points.
Chuck Prince was NOT working harder than me.
Thank you teacher, for the the fantastic analogy. Lets see Fred Flinstone come make a fool of himself once again.
Fred you're still in Bedrock. It doesn't really matter what ruler you use to measure 'best performing' since the wealthy will simply switch the ruler. Case in point General Motors…every CEO of that company has made millions while it descended and decesended. When you own the ruler you simply change the measure and you still WIN WIN WIN!!
To: Another Middle Class Taxpayer
I don't even know where to begin with you. It must be so nice to live in a simple, black and white world. Also, please spare us the "free load on the backs of the rest of us" propaganda.
"Handing cash to your heirs does not promote investing." Those heirs who DO invest and BTW majored in Economics resent the implication that we are anything like Paris Hilton!
It's really quite simple: the rich will benefit more under Obama than they will under McCain. They may pay more in taxes, but they'll pay those taxes on a bigger income. Historically, all sectors of society have seen their incomes increase more under Democratic administrations than under Republican ones, and Obama promises to be no different in that regard.
Does anyone dispute the factual accuracy of the Tax Policy Institute analysis?
For all those wailing about the abuses Obama's plan levels on .01% of the population, most of the pain comes from merely rescinding much of the tax cuts that were provided to the wealthy over the past 8 years. And last I checked our economy (and our rich) did just fine under those horrifying conditions.
Second lil tidbit: you can't just look at their tax plans–you've got to look at spending under each as well. While it's sad neither is pushing a balanced budget, Obama actually is spending less under his overall plan than McCain when you consider proposed spending and tax increases/decreases together. I'd put my vote in for the candidate who at the very least understands that if you're going to spend a boatload of our money, you need to tax enough to pay the bills. You want a stronger economy? Start focusing on our spiraling national debt and tax like we have one.
To teacher: I'll do it for Fred. Your analogy is not analogous. If you'd like to know where you started wrong, it was when you assumed that the failing (poor) student wasn't working hard. Because, you know…all poor people are lazy. That's why they're not rich.
Well, it seems to me there used to be this thing called a Republican-controlled Congress and when that Congress passed things called "Bush tax cuts," they knew they were going to be received as gifts to the wealthy, so they built in these things called sunset provisions. Obama doesn't have to lift a finger and the taxes will go up–as they should–all because Republicans don't actually stand for anything but their own re-elections every few years.
Enuff Said said: "the top 50% (who btw pay 96.09% of all taxes"
This is such a canard.
Let's think about that a moment. Let's say there's 10 people, 5 of whom make 100K a year and 5 make $1M a year, and we have a 10& flat rate. That 50K in taxes from the 100K individuals and 500,00 in taxes from the $1M
individuals. So even in a flat tax world, 90% of the taxes come from 50% of the taxpayers.
And it would be nice if all of you who only believe in Adam Smith's invisible ghost hand (proven by Scooby Doo to be Mr. Withers, the caretaker) had actually read the Wealth of Nations. To wit: "The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."
The Keynesian method lasted for so long because IT WORKED. Quite frankly, people making less than $40K should pay little in taxes; those making $250K or more should pay a healthier rate. The rich will always invest and try to make even more money — high taxes or not.
A thriving middle class is essential to a thriving US, and indeed, world economy. To claim that coddling the already wealthy to the detriment of the middle class is somehow anything other than VooDoo economics is either a deliberate lie or incessant stupidity.
I find it interesting that raising the minimum wage is felt to be bad for business. Doesn't paying the working poor encourage work verses govt. assistance? The rich do pay a lot of taxes but the amount is no more than the poor when you look at ALL taxes. Actually, all groups pay about the same per 1.00 earned.
Neither the Dems or the Reps do much to even the playing field. The Reps don't want it even and the Dems want to adjust at the end.
I am all for a progressive tax. There is no reason that CEO's i this country make 10′s and even 100′s of millions despite performance. These are the wages of entrepeneurship and invention.
For those of you curious about what $ amounts per individual are in each quintile, they breakdown as follows:
20%: $18,981
40%: $37,595
60%: $66,354
80%: $111,645
90%: $160,972
95%: $226,918
99%: $603,402
99.9%: $2,871,682
Source: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/411693_CandidateTaxPlans.pdf
as a biz owner and a 1%er, I would like to echo the fact that we benefit disporportionally from the Sum tax revenues. An example (in addition to what has already been stated above):
-educated workforce. If taxes did not educate our citizens I would not be able to find qualified people to work for my company. As it is, its hard enough to find good people and I would call for more education dollars need to be invested to find better teachers and research better educational tools so I could hire more competent and workforce ready employees.
-transportation: our roads and mass transit allow my company to ship nationally and globally for a relative bargain. Also, mass transit allows me to pull qualified people from far away suburbs that can't drive because of mass congestion on our under built roads and infustructure (another call for efficiency and money in the state and federal coffers)
I too cringe at the waste And inefficiency of government and hate seeing my money being wasted by all of the red tape and beuracracy but what the war in Iraq has taught all of us is that outsourcing brings us something much worse. I'd much rather see my tax dollars be misused and employ one of our citizens then put dollars into the pockets of the folks at halliburton or bectel.
So listen to the buffets and the gates of the world who know better than to believe in the myth that is trickel down econ… (I blame misspellings on my iPhone)
The people at the top have had it pretty good the last seven years. Not so for the middle and lower. Share the wealth.
To add: I forgot, who purchases and consumes more goods in this country and form the basis of our retail/housing/food/auto markets? Middle and lower incomes. So helping them will do absolutely nothing to boost our economy, I understand. They also spend a disproportionate amount of their income on basic purchases which means they are taxed, you just can't put it on this neat little graph. It's called sales tax.
No one should be cutting anyone's taxes. Our national debt is at an all time high and we are in 2 wars. Thank you Republican controlled-govt.
It must be nice to live life in an intellectualized, morally rationalized vacum where theory trumps reality.
The United States government is on the edge of financial ruin, and we have to bring it back to health as soon as possible or no one, rich or poor, is going to have a country to live in any more. We can tinker around the edges of how to do it, or who should pay more, but the simple fact is the people making less than 1% of the income are not responsible for this problem, and no one should pretend they have the means to get us out of it.
We are facing an economic crisis, folks, and—eeeeeek!—many of the rich are MORE to BLAME than anyone else. They have f—ed up their trickle down theory for the umpteenth time, and now they should have to feel the pain. The main impediment to America becoming a thriving economic country again is the overwhelming debt created under Bush-Co. It's Republican crony rich folks that have gotten off scot-free in the last 7 years. Who benefits from the Iraq war? The give away of national natural resources? The gutting of oversight and the Justice Department so that no one gets held accountable for the graft and corruption stealing out of the public coffers everyday? The middle class?
No, it the fat cat CEO's of corporations that have skimmed off the top of the corportate welfare no bid contract system. They had a party for under two terms, they did nothing to benefit our country, and now its broken. They have contributed to our massive debt, so they owe more now to fix it. Screw the whole "Communism" or "free market" or whatever rationalization you want to use to perpetuate this "pigs at the trough" episode of modern American history. They played, so now they pay. End of story.
Lower taxes only increase the tax base when taxes are prohibitively high, i.e 75% or more. To cut taxes from the 39% or 37% level to the 35% (i.e. make the current tax cut plan permanent) does not increase the tax base. This idea that you can grow out of a deficit is only possible if you expect growth to be unreasonably high, which I hear no one, anywhere, suggesting we will experience. Not only that, the 'cut the taxes on the rich to trickle down to the poor' idea is the source (in the 80′s) and engine for our current economic problems.
No one should be cutting anyone's taxes. Our national debt is at an all time high and we are in 2 wars. Thank you Republican controlled-govt.
Comment by glutz78 – July 3, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I couldn't agree with you more.
The basic dishonesty of this is the payroll tax. It makes up nearly 50% of the revenues, and is disproportinate on the incomes below $90,000. All of the analysis that the conservatives shout about never take this into account. It is dishonest and immoral.
If you cannot win an argument by telling the truth keep out of the discussion.
The same people that decry progressive taxation as unfair are the same that are more than willing to torture the humanity out of a few brown people in the hopes it might keep their empire safe.
Think about it.
If the wealthy paid those who worked for them higher wages and provided them all with health insurance, we wouldn't need to tax them at such high rates. Alas, the wealthy use their money not only to invest (increasingly in emerging markets outside the US), but also for their German luxury cars, their plastic surgeries, and all the undocumented workers who serve as their gardners, nannies, maids, etc. That's why we need to tax them more — so that the government can step in to provide what the rich increasingly refuse to do.
The fact is, my parents, who together make 26,000 a year, get taxed 33% on their income, then pay 5,000 dollars a year in house / school taxes on a small three bedroom home in Buffalo, NY, then pay sales taxes on most things they buy.
The net result: each has worked 2-3 jobs their entire life and destroyed their bodies and cannot even afford the deductibles on their health care to get treatment.
Then, when the state refused to give my mom disability, even though she absolutely cannot work anymore and had paid into it her whole life, she was forced to take out a second mortgage, which was a predatory loan, but they had no choice. Now that gas prices have gone up, health care benefits have gone down, food prices up, and my dad was forced to take a pay cut – they are close to losing their house.
The fact is – the amount that they have paid into the system – THEY DESERVE a tax break now to survive and not lose their house… The richest ten percent can afford a few more taxes to help people like my parents who broke their bodies providing necessary services for their entire lives from which many of them benefited…
The scary part is, while my parents where breaking their bodies, they were paying a higher percent of their taxes than those that were not.
Vote Obama in 2009 to help people like my parents!
Mccain's tax cuts just help the rich get richer while doing nothing… NOTHING… to help the economy. If you give the super rich a 3% raise they are NOT going to hire more people. They are NOT going to build a new factory. Their spending habits are NOT going to change. Give a tax cut to the middle classes and they will spend it on vehicles, clothes, houses, plasma TVs, etc. As the middle class spends, the retail sector comes back, housing comes back, automotive sales pick up. The rich already have all of those things.
Everyone works hard. Working at McDonald's is hard job, picking up garbage is a hard job, construction is a hard job, answering phone's is a hard job. Installing your cable is a hard job, delivering your packages is a hard job… I could keep going .
Oh, wait, I guess the only people who have hard jobs are people that sit around all day and write on blogs about how hard their jobs are, and how tough it is to have to support all these whiney people that are actually out busting their ass so you can have everything.
There are some people in this world who are, to no fault of their own, not bright, or did not grow up with any support, and don't have the oppurtunities you have. And spare me the stories of "the guy that came from nothing", he is a rarity.
Funny how all the blogging suddenly stopped….
What's up with Pinkberry? It tastes like cardboard to me? What does everyone think?
you're a jerk, angry hippie
At the end of the day the real issue is fiscal responsibility during a time of great national peril. First off, we are a nation at war and as such we are duty bound to fund our military. During WWII this was seen as patriotic, after "Reaganomics" we became a nation of lazy ingrates with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. Time to pony up folks.
Second, the national debt is fast approaching $10 trillion. This year's deficit is projected at $400 billion which does not account for the $300 billion additional expense for Iraq and Afghanistan. Total $700 billion. The failure of successive Republican administrations to engage in even basic fiscal sanity has seriously undermined global confidence in the dollar which has forced the dollar's value lower relative to other currencies and helped drive up the cost of oil, amongst other things.
Cutting taxes without addressing expenses is simply insane. What we should have learned from Reagan's failed economic experiment was that dramatic tax cuts lower revenue. If you doubt this please look at the statistical tables in the Economic Report of the President and be sure you are looking at inflation adjusted dollars from 1981 through 1985. The claim of Reagan's supporters that that administration's economic policies were a success, including the tax cuts, while ignoring the economic impact of the nearly $2 trillion in borrowed funds pumped into the economy is delusional.
Finally, I do not want a tax increase but recognize that our nation is moving toward insolvency. Global financial markets are signaling the same concerns. To bring about fiscal sanity and restore our economy we will need to lower taxes on the middle and lower classes and raise them on upper income households. Lower income households tend to spend all or nearly all of the income on consumption thus spurring demand. Upper income households may well invest and save but these activity do not generate demand. Business only add jobs and increase output when there is an increase in demand, not because they or their owners are getting a tax break.
Even under Obama's tax scenario the impact on the wealthy is far from onerous, would raise revenue and stimulate demand for goods, services and jobs.
"But one thing is clear: Mr. Obama sees taxes as a way to ease inequality, while Mr. McCain sees them as a way to encourage economic growth by helping the top."
Sigh. Perhaps Mr. Obama taxes the wealthy because he thinks it's the most efficient means of raising revenue for the Federal government? And perhaps he believes investments made by the Federal government could help the overall economy grow or support other goals? And you are free to challenge whether or not his methods would work.
But why, WHY must conservatives keep seeing his goal not as raising revenue for the government, but as a means to "ease inequality." Notice how it's contrasted with McCain's goal of "encouraging economic growth" (another disputable point that tax cuts for the rich accomplish that). Couldn't this phrase just as fairly say "Mr. McCain sees them as a way to INCREASE inequality?" I mean, based on how he described Obama's plan that seems very consistent.
Most of the folks posting here seem to think that the govt. is doing the middle class a favor by letting us pay taxes so the rich can get richer. Since when is being middle class a failure (as so many of you believe?)
Giving tax cuts to the rich does not benefit the middle class, as data shows. There's no reason for the middle to support tax cuts for the rich at all. That's why we'll vote for Obama.
It is amazing how people take such a biased article and then spew its contents as fact. Dan makes an excellent point that has so far been overlooked. "One thing is clear" – the conclusion of this article is pure conjecture.
I view progressive taxation is an appropriate recourse to the very real phenomenon that there are multiple tiers to the American economy. Since the early 80's the total share of the economy owned by the top 1% has been steadily rising while that of the bottom 50% has been steadily declining. Or more to the point:
From Wiki ("Household income in the United States"):
In 2003 a household in the 95th percentile earned 77.2% more than a household in the 80th percentile, compared to 60.5% in 1967, a 27.6% increase in the earnings increase discrepancy between the two groups. Overall the income of the 95th percentile grew 15.2% faster than that of the 80th, 146.8% faster than that of the median and 159.9% faster than that of the 20th percentile.[32]
Households in the top 1% experienced the by far greatest increases in household income. According to economist Janet Yellen "the growth [in real income] was heavily concentrated at the very tip of the top, that is, the top 1 percent."[33] A 2006 analysis of IRS income data by economists Emmanuel Saez at the University of California, Berkeley and Thomas Piketty at the Paris School of Economics showed that the share of income held by the top 1% was as large in 2005 as in 1928. The data revealed that reported income increased by 9% in 2005, with the mean for the top 1% increasing by 14% and that for the bottom 90% dropping slightly by 0.6%.[34]
There are many factors that feed into this, including economies of scale, opportunity, privilege, education, corruption (both corporate and governmental), etc., some of which are "fair" and some of which are "unfair." But the purpose of a progressive tax is not to "punish" those who might benefit from some of the unfair factors. It is merely an acknowledgement that these economic tiers perform differently, and should therefore be taxed differently.
To Geoff, who thought my analogy was poor: I didn't assume anyone was lazy — it looks like you made that assumption. Would you like your kids to be in my class? Some kids in my class complain about my policies, but I solved the problem by taking more points from the top students and spreading them to more of the bottom. Now, I am very popular except for a few bitter students. Also, all the adults now praise me for my moral courage in pursuing equality of outcomes.
To teach:
Perhaps it was my assumption. But it's a likely starting place for someone who's built an analogy that is far too simple to be an adequate stand in for discussion. I can only hope you're keeping your tongue firmly in cheek…
Nobody ever mentioned anything about equality of outcomes, nor is anyone trying to bring that about. What has been argued here is that the inputs are not equal; that certain strata of the economic population benefit differently from this society (i.e. the business owner above who realizes larger profits, thanks to transportation infrastructure, public education, and governmental stability). A better analogy for you would be if you had 20 students, the top 5 of which worked with laptops and all the necessary equipment, the middle 10 only had calculators, pen and paper, and the bottom 5 just had to memorize everything.
Forget the morality of progressive v. conservative taxation policy. Let's instead look at the financial implications.
Over the last decade, the highest income brackets captured most of the income gains while lower brackets saw incomes stagnate. Middle- and lower-class consumers made up the shortfall by tapping credit and running up household debt.
When the credit spigot was shut off (which was inevitable), consumers dramatically scaled back spending. Which brings us to where we are today… a badly sputting economy that seems to worsen by the day.
This is a consumer-led slowdown. The only way out is to get more income into the hands of lower and middle-income consumers. Once they begin spending again, the economy will recover and grow in a more sustainable fashion. That is what Obama's plan aims to do.
Those in the highest brackets may not like it, but there will be a much heavier price to be paid than this higher tax burden if we cannot stabilize our economy.
McCains plan – more of Reagans trickle down effect. But what republican's fail to explain is once it trickles down to the little people like me…all has dried up.
So let's stop feeding the very rich all of this money!
I sincerely doubt Obama's taxation goal is to ease inequality. There's a surplus of economic resource being horded by the richest Americans and we're in an economic crisis (so I keep being told, anyway). It's not terribly fair, though, that the moguls who didn't vote for George W. Bush are going to have to pay for his war.
Wealth is being hoarded by the Richest Americans. Obama has to learn what exactly is the definition of rich. Sorry Obama your definition isn't on the mark. Leave the middle class alone!
Maybe our paychecks should first just go to the IRS. Then, the IRS could decide how much money we need to live on, and they would just provide us a "net" check. So the system would be about income reimbursement, and not about income tax.
Your're Right – you are right! His middle class includes those of us without the myriads of tax evasion techniques of the truly rich. I am barely in his defn of rich – and I worked like a dog and still do to get here. Why penalize me? Quite frankly, I work harder than most of the "truly rich" such as the Paris Hiltons of the world. Why give my money away – penalize me for myhard work?
To people who think that lowering taxes increases revenue, why not argue that we cut the tax rate to 0%? Wouldn't we then have infinite tax revenue? If not, then you must agree that there is a lower limit to the tax rate and that lower limit is greater than 0%.
I am in the top 0.1% in both income and net worth in the US. Because 100% of my income comes from dividends and capital gains, which are both taxed at 15%, I pay a lower rate than everyone with less income. I pay a higher *dollar* amount, but that doesn't mean I'm being treated unfairly. If the capital gains and dividends rates are raised to 20%, 25% or even 30%, I won't stop investing.
BTW, the teacher analogy to taxes is idiotic. I hope you aren't really a teacher, and if you are, your $30K/yr salary is WAY too high — tax payers are getting cheated.
according to a harvard survey
top 6% of wage earners.
52% work more than 70 hours a week
the top 10% pay 71% of the taxes in this country
the bottom 50% pay about 4% and get a windfall from the earned income tax credit
teacher, you are trying to analogize an infinite resource (grades) with a finite resource (money). If you can't figure out why this makes a difference, sit down in your class and let one of your students teach you.
nitpicker, the only thing conservatives understand about the Wealth of Nations is that "selfishness is good". Once they read that, they stopped reading because they had found their rationalization for selfishness. And when you live in a black and white world, as conservatives prefer, details and facts are nuisances.
To the nitwits who argue that the wealthiest pay the most in dollars…
Ask yourself this: If you were in the top 1% and you were taxed at a high rate, would you prefer to move to the bottom 99%?
If you would, then you can do that, just give away your money to charity. If you wouldn't, stop feeling sorry for the wealthiest.
If the rich pay too much, how come they are still rich?
just sayin'
I vote for McWar, there is too much bickering in the world. There are too many people in the world. We need to stop all abortions, so we can have more troops in the future to fight in our new wars. We need more wars, but not wars like the Idiot has created. We need to kill more people, not help them rebuild their stinking countries with American tax funds. Let's kill all the Muslims.
The contrast between the two plans is absolutely dramatic. You've got McCain, who is more of the same of the past 20 years, overpaying an investor class that has gotten flabby and lazy, while government and private debt increase and the economy goes to seed. And you've got Obama, who uses the model that won us two world wars and enabled us to dominate the 20th century, and who, not incidentally, has a revenue-neutral scheme that does not aggravate our deficit.
I say why pay any taxes. No taxes for everyone. Let's just have more wars. We can just steal from other countries. We have the best military. Who can stop us? No more abortions so we can increase the size of our military. Let's kill all the Muslims and take all their oil. No more of this nation building crap. Just bomb, suck out all their oil and leave.
You people are comedy. I am constantly amused with all the people who think they are middle class, that whole concept is gone. We have the rich and the rest of us. Those who spend our money, I mean waste our money with ridiculous programs or sending it to countries as aide, when they clearly hate us. I mean, these people give away billions we don't have to other countries, like it's candy. Stop it already. I'm also curious how people are collecting social security in this country who never worked a day in their life, it's no wonder the system is going broke. I'm tired of seeing the waste going on.
Lets raise the taxes for everyone making $150K or less. Then lower the rate for the top 5%. That should make a dent in our sluggish economy. The trickle down effect will erase the deficit. or as Cheney says "Deficits don't matter".
I'm going to have to agree with Mr. Flinstones evaluation of the "teacher"'s test analogy. Why don't you look at it this way. If you do have a 40 point spread between the highest performer and the lowest, where should you direct most of your teaching effort? Do you want focus on the top performers because you believe that if they do even better those below them will somehow benefit from their improved results? Wouldn't it make more sense to focus on the kids who are struggling? Or is this just survival of the fittest? A kid who is struggling is obviously struggling because he is deficient in one way or another so there is no point in helping him out? That kind of thinking will result in a very small pool of extremely successful people for a short time. After that nobody will succeed because there aren't enough capable people to keep the economy running.
On another note, this must be a column that is read by a very select group of people. Many of the posters here claim that they are in the top .1% The fact that it's the top .1% should limit that group to only .1% of the population and by extension, .1% of our posters here. This is quite an anomoly.
Just a question about another post. Teacher,are you serious about your unique and dynamic grading scale? If so sign up for a Google alert on 'financial education' or 'financial literacy'. You will find that, regardless of how you grade, it is your teaching that is failing all of your students. You, as a math teacher, should be very aware that there is still a financially illiterate class of patriotic, tax-paying citizens in this country. Their children need you to teach more effectively and teach them the skills they need to survive in the caste system that is shaping up to be this country over the next few decades.
The way the system is designed currently the very rich can find all sorts of loopholes to get out of paying taxes. I would argue however that luxury items are made by people that need that job. Take away the luxury item and there goes the job. My suggestion to everybody is to start your own company and become the employer instead of the employee and see how that shoe fits. See how much work goes into starting and keeping a business running. Every time the government ups the minimum wage, or asks the business owner to guarantee benefits for employees I can assure you it is like getting punched in the stomach. The fact that a business owner is providing a job is a huge plus to the economy but by democrats perspective it just isn't enough. The business owner took the risk and now the democrats want their hard earned money to be distributed to those that didn't take the risk but still want more. I am certain, without any doubt, that if everybody had a stint as a business owner they would see how unhealthy it is to constantly beret the rich/wealthy or just those better off as some sort of cheap, miserly human being.
Hey Saddened…It is entirely realistic that more than .1% of the posters here are in the top .1% buddy. In fact, it is quite likely as this is not a randomly selected sample from the general population. Rather, it is a WSJ forum and people here are on average more wealthy and intelligent than in many other forums (you're obviously not one of them).
I am making $1,250,000/year but still feel like I'm getting squeezed these days. Any suggestions?
"provided them all with health insurance" If the nonwealthy took better care of themselves w/o relying on emergeny medicine to fix what they have been breaking due to years of smoking, poor eating habits, etc then maybe healthcare wouldn't be prohibitively expensive. Trouble is, everyone thinks they are entitled to "THE BEST" healthcare that (someone else's) money can buy.
Sue: "Quite frankly, I work harder than most of the "truly rich" such as the Paris Hiltons of the world. Why give my money away – penalize me for myhard work?"
Quite frankly, I'm not sure if you do. Because let's face it… Paris Hilton may be spoiled, etc but the fact of the matter is, her name and her face SELLS! It brings in huge amounts of money because of her popularity. How much money have YOU made for your employer? Quite frankly, I think you're full of it.
"The Keynesian method lasted for so long because IT WORKED. Quite frankly, people making less than $40K should pay little in taxes; those making $250K or more should pay a healthier rate."
Isn't it interesting the way some people always like to skew the numbers: The poor pay too MUCH, the rich don't pay their fair SHARE. You're comparing apples to oranges. Use the same unit of measure when comparing and you might be surprised about fairness.
It's been said that anyone who promises to "tax Peter to pay Paul" will always have Paul's support. The democrats have us so sliced and diced – working class whites, poor Hispanics, middle class blacks – that they can promise every group to give them benefits at the expense of the other groups.
One other thing – the rich and ultra rich – what do they do with that cash? They INVEST it – in start-ups, in boats and cars built by skilled craftsmen – and that crates wealth. The government getting money creates no wealth – in fact, loaning MORE money to a Congress that figures they can spend money set aside for tomorrow today is a fool thing to do. Do you remember when Jimmy Carter put a tax on LUXURY items, figuring that only the rich woulds suffer? Skilled workers all across the country got laid off – because rich people don't HAVE to buy things. Take away their spending money, and trust me, things get worse.
I mean, if you really believe government can spend your money better than you, give all your money to the government. Good luck with that.
Sean… This is your mother… I hope you are kidding…
Anonymous, who do you think put those ideas in Sean's head?
Middle Class Taxpayer, you feel that way because those who make less money than you do, are trying to strangle you.
"If the rich pay too much, how come they are still rich?"
Because they have a money-making mentality, not a money-taking mentality. Just sayin'
To Ben and Fred and the other "progressives": Grades are not really an infinite resource because they only count insofar as they signal inequality of achievement (or whatever your preferred word is) within the class. To Ben's analogy, I think the onus is on you to tell me why it is so clear that a successful business owner was "using a laptop" while the unsuccessful business owner was "just memorizing everything". If you take a population with the same access to the public infrastructure, some will turn out to earn a lot and some won't and therefore some will be taxed highly and some won't. How do you justify this?
To Ben again: my grading policy assumes that the top kids have some kind of advantage like laptops. Why don't you like my grading policy? Isn't it the same as assuming the rich and successful had more access to public goods?
I have worked in the Eastern Bloc of countries since 1991 and see the results of using force such as taxes and pay to "equalize" the ways folks lived. The poor were given land and power, like Mugabe, and the successful were punished. Store owners, land owning farmers and anyone who produced more than their neighbors lost their jobs.
This is the essence of Socialism and Obama is a Socialist. Right now we are discussing taking from the very wealthy and giving to the lower class. Next it will be taking from the middle and giving it to the lower class. This is what happened in the USSR, China, East Germany, etc.
I was a teacher when the rules on grades were changed by the PC Police. We separated kids into Blue, Yellow and Red Birds so hide the fact that some were poor performers. Every kid knew exactly what was happening and concluded that the teachers were stupid.
If we took 90% of the resources away from the high performers and gave it to the low performers it would change back in ten years. Under Stalin the differences between haves and have nots were huge but they were based on favoritism not performance.
This is an on going class war. The rich have the reigns of power and are quietly moving the tax burden to those without the power. They are for the most part driven by greed and lack the basic compassion that the rest of Americans possess. Don't be fooled by postings that claim otherwise. For the rich, Leona Helmsley is truly the spokesperson for them from beyond the grave with her statement," We don't pay taxes, that's for the poor."
Sorry that the Mugabe reference was oblique. Mugabe is following the Socialist Model and has destroyed the Bread Basket of Africa. He ran White Farmers off the land and gave it to Poor Blacks. Now the farms are poor performers and people are actually starving when they at one time fed Africa and other Continents.
I have a idea. On this most important day, the celebration of the birth if our great country, let's go back to the tax rates in place when great men of wealth and power understood fairness and the responsibility of having such wealth.
We need to foment more peace around the world. We are presently only in two conflicts , and this is simply unacceptable. If we would bring back the draft for both genders and expand the age of draftees from 18 to 50, there would be full employment. In addition, we would be able to further impose our values on everyone who thinks otherwise. Once we conquer other nations, we can create more free markets. If almost everyone was in the military, people would not be so concerned with the relative wealth of their peers. If we needed natural resources or any other commodity, we could just go take it by force. I'm not sure why we create complicated guises to hide this agenda. We should be proud of our military might.
The method of characters like Obama is to cripple easy target groups that are pulling the weight, and then grab as much as much as possible from their wallets. Smart people see through this instantly and do not play along.
I guess your crippled by wealth. Poor soul. The problem with wealth and posessions is that you become obsessed with keeping it and getting more than the next guy. In a sense you are Gollum, willing to do anything to hold on to 'precious' all the while losing your humanity. Your only friends are others with wealth. You don't trust that anyone else is near you for any other reason than you money and connections to it. This is played out everyday and is especially true of those who inherit wealth. I've seen parents turn on thir children and grandchildren to keep the 'ring' from them. Don't let you kids push you too close to the pier in your wheel chair when you are old.
Another day and another dollar!
Ever notice how the liberals can only make a point by insulting and demeaning their opponent? Just an observation. BTW, the solution to income inequality is very simple – just kill and eat the rich (anyone with more money than you) – they are delicious!
In this country, being elected president is a lot like the early papacy. The family an friends of the one selected became wealthy and powerful.
Note Halliberton, Blackwater and the oil companies. The race may look for a struggle of ideals, but the underlying driving force is only money. Those close to Bush and Cheney do not want to lose the open check book that the whitehouse has provided. Watch to see what they will do to prevent being throne out of the kings court.
Obama's plan keeps given those unwilling to put up a decent days work more reason to be lazy. Instead of teaching them how to fish, he gives them the fish. A liberal socialist like Obama would slow down America's economic engine with his promises of a financial even field, but when capital starts to move to more fertile ground out of our country, what's is he going to do? Ideas like Mr. Obama's of equal distribution of wealth are like equal distribution of missery in a socialiust nation. It's that what we want for America? McCain is my guy.
I read these comments are realize than most have lost thier ethics compass. TO address the issue of taxes, gay marriage, or the war in Iraq the discussion should start from an ethical and moral position and flow down into policy that flows out of those ethical contructs. Stem cell research is a good example. Ethically some believe it is taboo, others believe it is acceptable. But doesn't everyone believe that it is unethical to force someone to pay for something that is strictly forbidden by thier religion? (one can now move to the collection of taxes to be used for war, but for the moment let's stay on Stem cells). So for this hopefully fair minded individual, I respect an individuals refusal to support an activity not specifically embodied in the constitution as a required governmental activity. How can you come to any other ethical conclusion? Taxes are the same way – I canot imagine someone taking the position that it is more ethical to take more from one person than they take from another over the what is a truly ethical position of treating everyone equally, and then letting volunterism and charity become the equalizer. The arguement that charity doesn't happen doesn't provide adequate ethical grounds to justify unethical treatment let alone confiscation by force. Just some rantings and thoughts…..
MIDDLE CLASS TAXPAYER since when is $1.2 Million middle class?! My suggestion is to just sit back and shut up if you are making $1.2M – the REAL middle class is NOT feeling any sympathy for YOU
$1.2 million is not as it was! The confiscation of wealth these days by our politicians has diluted one's personal wealth!
Ahh, the plight of the wealthy. You must be vigilant in propagating the idea that you too are needy. You all work so hard to manufacture false connections to those who you really despise. The ability to succeed in getting the the poor to forget that their vote is about money is a testament to your control of the press. Why is it that most of the voters you depend on don't see the irony of you calling someone elitist while sipping mint juleps at the country club?
Regardless of whether one is earning $250,000 or $2 Million, it is a matter of perception or degree in that one has to "push a broom" whether at a factory floor or in one's boardroom!
CitizenL – Golly, you hurt my feelings. Why not save your twisted projections for the sheeple?
Liberals are the obsessed ones – with other people's business. Always looking at the other guy. All that jeolousy and envy! Why do they not focus their energy on their own pursuits?
Labor cannot exist without capital.
Class is not a number, it is a condition.
There is no more value in the opinions of a fool, than there is in the second kick of a mule.
Hey L.O., do I see a conservative saying don't worry your pretty little heads and let us run things? I think that you use the term liberal to mean anyone who disagrees with us. I congratulate you on the way the rabid right can take something good and make it bad. Language is a powerful tool and you guys are the masters of deception. The worst thing that could happen for you is for the scales to fall from America's eyes and see you for what you really are.
Obama has a new progressive tax proposal to tax smart people. The gap between smartness and dumbness is too wide so smart people need to be punished. If you inherit your smartness you are taxed at a lower rate than if you paid your own way through collage. And academics will be taxed at the highest rate possible because they are too smart for their own good. Of course congress will be taxed the least not because they will exempt themselves from this tax but because they are so dumb.
The wealth in this country have sat back caressing their tax breaks bush has so generously given while the country ha been at war on two fronts!We have unpresedented deficits and debts while the middle class struggles to stay afloat.At what point does one ask for some sacrifce from those who have benifited most from the disasterous policies of this president.Never?
The wealth in this country have sat back caressing their tax breaks bush has so generously given while the country ha been at war on two fronts!We have unpresedented deficits and debts while the middle class struggles to stay afloat.At what point does one ask for some sacrifce from those who have benifited most from the disasterous policies of this president.Never?
I don't know why we are having this debate.
Obama's plan is better because we owe the Chinese + diaspora, the Arab League and the Russians 4 Trillion dollars.
Until people believe the US is serious about addressing its widening deficits and restoring balance in its economy, the dollar will continue sliding.
citizenL: You did a poor job of re-inventing what I wrote.
The President of the United States, is "Under" the American people, not the other way around.
No matter what plan Obama gives or the words he speaks, he is being critized. As compared to McCain, who constantly lies, flip flops and accuses Obama of the very things he is doing. McCain flip flopped on tax cuts, oil drilling, immigration, and public spending during the primary, he sought the endorsement of pastors who made very racist statements- Hagee and Parsley,similar to Michelle Obama's statement, McCain stated, " for the first time I love my country" see Dan Abrams on MSNBC. However, this is not being highlighted.
If you do not want to vote for obama for whatever reason-he's black, etc., just say it. Instead of making up outrageous excuses such as Obama's tax cuts will not benefit the middle class when the figures clearly show Obama's tax cuts favor the middle class as compared to McCains plan that defintely favors the rich!
Does anyone know why McCain refuses to release his military records? Have any of you researched his military history. His record indicates nothing heroic that he has ever done. Crashing and being captured is not heroic. In fact, it has many troubling aspects including Military code violations (a crime), numerous relations with subordinates, collaborating with the enemy, making videos for the enemy, many say he was never tortured, there is no proof he was, he was injured ejecting from the plane, a history of 5 plane crashes, killing 167 US sailors aboard the USS Forrestal, numerous demerits at the US Naval Academy, graduating 894 out of 899, astronaut Bruce McCandless was #2, Class of 1958, receiving 28 medals in less than 20 hours of combat, some grunts on the ground for 7000 hours got no medals, receiving medals that required eyewitnesses when there were none. It seems like his 4 star admiral father covered up a lot of his troubles and got him into the US Naval Academy and allowed him to fly planes and got him medal he did not deserve. He admitted on 60 Minutes, CBS News, 1997, for being a war criminal for dropping bombs on innocent women and children. Maybe, this is why he refuses to release his military records.
It seems clear to me that the owners of great amounts of property benefit more from our system than owners of smaller amounts. You just have to consider the difference between life under a reasonable government (broadly construed) with life in the State of Nature.
You can only go without sleep so long, you can only trust other people you hire to watch your stuff so much. You can only punish an individual who tries to take your stuff so much without his relatives' taking umbrage and swarming over you. You have no control of what happens to your estate after you die.
Laws and customs and the expectation that society will make itself worth most people's while make the above possible. I guess that if you're the strongest and smartest and most charismatic bad-ass around, you can be a barbarian war-lord, but 1.) there are going to be very few of those, so you probably won't be, and 2.) you'll be a barbarian war-lord, surrounded by the obsequious and the fearful, trusting no-one, king of a dung-heap, in all ways inferior to an upper-middle-class member of a wealthy society, much less a rich member.
William Gates II and III, Warren Buffett, and (yes, you may hold up a crucifix if you must) George Soros are all very intimate with the ways wealth is acquired and kept in this society, and all acknowledge the role of society in it. Of course, you may trot out some John Rockefellers and Hunts on the opposite side of the debate, but I find their arguments a tense mix of Social Darwinism, Calvinism, and willful blindness.
The current "support" for Obama is in fact a grandly orchestrated illusion. Most high school student body presidents are more qualified. I expect him to lose the General Election by 15 percentage points, minimum.
I was an x former agent and you people are missing the boat, none of you know of what is going to take place. you morans have no clue of what obama is planing to do. like usual we will fix it and place the correct president.
The problem is thie country supports LAZY idiots like "Fred Flintstone" and the idiot that "Hates the WSJ"…Fred thinks the govt should penialize people for getting ahead in the world and the retard that "Hates the WSJ" thinks those people are at fault for the economy.
The problem with the economy is only partly screwed up by the govt, because it sucks wealth out of the population.
The PROBLEM with the economy are the liberals that don't want to work and blame's thier worthless lives on anyone that is productive.
Hold the bus!
The point that is missing here that we are quickly becoming a nation with a small number of people paying a larger and larger portion of the total INCOME taxes.
It seems with every tax "reform" another chunk of the population is lopped off the income tax rolls. The negative implication here is that government spending will be even harder to control since the voting numbers of high tax paying voters could be eclipsed by an overwelming number of minimal to no tax liability voters.
its pretty clear Mr. Flintstone resents successful people because he seems to feel they have either achieved by exploiting the less talented or they represent an aristocracy of undeserved inherited wealth. In any event he advocates the Euro social democrat model of wealth & income redistribution. Frankly, I sort of like job growth, prosperity,innovation, reward for risk and the high standard of living it affords.
There is a huge myth being perpetrated here: that more regressive tax policies encourage economic growth. In fact, it is the other way around. Poorer people spend a greater proportion of their extra income than richer people, because they are yet to satisfy their basic needs. The money they spend grows the economy.
Taking from the rich and giving to the poor results in an increase in GDP.
Incentives for the richest to save more money and build bigger fortunes are what got us into this mess in the first place. The middle class is the engine of our consumer economy, and it is dead broke. We need to leave more money in the hands of people that actually spend all of their money and keep the donut growing, rather than those who simply hoard resources for themselves. Moreover, the rich have an incentive to get richer whatever rate they're paying – if 60% of a billionaire's investment earnings are taxed, they'll still invest like hell to get the other 40% of it. On the other hand, asking the middle class taxpayer barely making their mortgage to finance all of the infrastructure and research for companies and their investors to reap the benefits is more likely to push them into foreclosure, burdening the public and hurting the very companies conservatives think they're helping. Large wealth gaps are unhealthy for countries, period. In the past few decades, America has fallen behind in life expectancy and education because of our regressive tax policies and underfunded public services. Ease up on the poor and middle class, tax the hedge fund managers, and spend that money fixing up America to work for the next century.
Dear Mom
I came to America because I hear stories of people getting rich beyond their wildest dreams but when I got hear I notices there was some thing wrong. Airlines are laying off people auto plants and auto parts makers are closing down and everyone is fuming mad about something called gas, I notice this anger increases especially when they fill up their carriages at the well. One guy drove off without pay money to attendant. No one happy here like back at home. Everyone complain about cost of food and something called gas. Who knows, maybe someday , no food , no jobs, no house………. Can I come home Mom?
Dear Junior
Yes, Come home at once. Your father and I are both worried about you. I will wire the money you need to get back home. Buy a ticket for a passenger ship to come home. Make sure it's a ship with a S A I L on it because all other power boats are parked at the dock for weeks with for sale signs attached.
Mommy Dearest
maybe I am missing a few points… or perhaps this is just the wrong forum to question, however, it seems to me that regardless of who pays the taxes ultimately if the revenues aren't properly managed we are still going to be in debt as a nation. I think we need to tighten up on how the government is letting or national budget get so out of wack. Just printing up more money or readjusting where taxes are coming from isn't going to solve the issues at hand.
Instead of discussing how to solve the country's problems, we get into finger pointing over "greedy" rich and "lazy" poor. It's never, never this simple.
Last year I was in the top 1%…the year before, I was only in the top 30%. I took less income from my struggling business, raised money from private investors and turned things around. I also hired 30 people…all high quality computer and sales jobs. I survived a lean year, worked ridiculous hours (100 hours/week plus worrying) until 1 am trying to solve my problems.
At what point did the state or federal government help me? I never thought once about unemployment/welfare…I spent my SAVINGS…money I had saved from working for a "big" company so I could go start my own company. Does this make me "greedy" and "selfish?"
I think all of you need to think long and hard about how true wealth/prosperity is created. It is created by those who take risk…massive risk at their own expense with a dream to make it work. Entrepreneurs who have ideas, get capital (whether from their own pockets or from an investor), risk all and if they are successful…are rewarded. The lazy rich are (arguably) the folks who "inherit" wealth from their family…typically…there is a person(s) who generated wealth and passes it on…some of those "lazy" rich are the ones you speak of…don't confuse someone like me with a "lazy" rich person. I worked a hell of a lot harder for nothing than 99.9% of the people I know/see. When people were in "traffic" jams going home at 5 pm…I was the one at the office until 1 am. So, enough with the "lazy" rich analogy. There are lazy rich and then there are the hard working folks who made it because they worked hard and smart and took massive risk and were rewarded for it.
So…what should be done? Tax policy should ensure that we have infrastructure (roads…my god, our roads are a joke), national defense, etc. And it should encourage those with excess capital to reinvest in our economy…NOT OTHER economies. In other words, let's avoid what has happened to Germany…where the wealthy move to Austria to avoid ridiculous tax policies. Other countries happily "poach" American dollars.
Want to prevent lazy rich? 100% inheritance tax! BTW, those of you making fun of Paris Hilton…I sense she probably works a lot harder than some realize (no…I'm not a fan…lol). Like her or not…she has figured out how to take her inheritance and grow it.
Would I have gotten the investment I needed for my business if capital gains were higher than 15%? Certainly…there would be a lot less capital out there to sponsor those businesses. Since I received that investment…we've created 30+ jobs in Michigan…our unemployment rate here is above 8%. The average wage paid is $60 to $100k. That's how capitalism works! Am I "lazy?" Everyone who works for us gets a piece of the action AND knows that if they don't produce, we go under…unlike the average government sponsored job.
In my mind, there's nothing worse than a man/woman who spends all of their time figuring out how to take someone else's property. Do I think someone who inherited billions (look at wal mart heirs) deserved it? No. But for one minute, be thankful that we were fortunate to be the few % of people who were born in a country where opportunity exists…as opposed to let's say, Uganda. Is that fair? No…life isn't fair…get used to it, stop whining, and work harder and smarter. I have had many setbacks, failed several times (and lost a ton of savings) and do I blame the govt? No…I accept responsibility, learn from my mistakes and get back to work.
And don't expect handouts from government…please…Obama quit on the Chicago projects…it was too hard. Go read about his "success" on the south side. McCain married into wealth. Neither is "clean." I'm interested in solving the problem…we need tax policy that provides our core necessity and encourages investment into new businesses IN THE UNITED STATES. Low capital gains and a reasonable income tax will do that. Ok…I'm tired of ranting…
Hey, Wazoo
Wazoo has American DNA.
I totally agree with you, and could not have said it better. I do have one question, however. And please, this is not in any way "confrontational". You highlight several times "UNITED STATES", which , I believe, could be interpreted as "isolationist".
We are about a 10th into the 21st century and "GLOBAL" is, in some sense, the "battle cry" today. I don't believe that you are advocating turning in on ourselves (although, somtetimes, that thought feels soooo good), but do you think that the UNITED STATES can, in any sphere, be it economic, political, cultural, and so on, stand alone? Aren't we (and I mean all of us human creatures on this planet) becoming more and more tightly coupled with each passing moment? Can we, in today's world, go it alone? You will agree that Western Civilization, as represented by the US, is, effectively, dominating the globe today, and is slated to continue doing that for generations to come. For just that "simple" reason, we must find ways to help ourselves out of the morass we're in, so that, what some commentators here have called the "American DNA" (I would call it the Western DNA), can survive. It would be a darned shame if the US would turn in on itself again (as we've done several times in our history), and not share what we've learned with the rest of the planet. I know comments will fly in on "imperialism", on "Hyper Power" and so forth. That is not the kind of sharing I'm talking about. I am talking about sharing as in partnerships. And in what better sphere than in the economic one?
"Oh yes, I am a sheeple, and oh so proud to be.
I am way too smart to believe in a conspiracy"
Rich Republicans enjoy your money while its still worth the paper its printed on. By not caring about the poor, we will increase in numbers since its easier to become homeless than financially stable. America no longer controlls the world. In fact america doesnt even controll america. america is a "paper tiger" who cant even secure a country without an air force or navy. By the way, you should be more concerned with the Muslims who are taking jobs away from your silver spoon fed Harvard graduates. Try and find a hospital in America without an Arab doctor.
Here's an interesting read re: how people who make less than $20K a year spend more than 1/3 of their time doing leisure activities, while those who make $100K+ spend less than 1/5 of their time in leisure. Correlation? Causation? You make the call:
As for me, I had to watch fireworks from the office because I was working.
Guess I'll just have to spend more time watching TV once Obama decides to penalize hard work–especially if my taxes jump by 6% because I'm not "paying my share" into a social security system that I'll never see a dime from.
But hey, I'm "the rich," so why should I complain?
"The nation should have a tax system that looks like someone designed it on purpose" William E. Simon
Top 1% and who worked long and hard to earn it!
As usual, financial illiteracy runs rampant. I can tell not many rich people chime in here because… well, arguing with the un-educated middle class about money is a waste of time. The financially illiterate don't know that they are truly ignorant about how money works so they condemn the wealthy while blaming the government and our public school system for the reason why 'everyone else' doesn't understand money.. or math. But the truth is, we now have VAST educational resources available to us at any instant yet we would rather watch reality TV shows, sports, play video games or find any one of a million ways to entertain rather than educate ourselves. Blame yourselves for you and your children's lack of knowledge. Do your children a favor and start teaching them about money now. Google 'how money works' or something similar, pick a good educational website and spend 20-30 minutes once a week with your children educating them (and yourself) about money. If you are going to rely on the government or the school system to provide you with this kind of education and blame them for lack thereof, you deserve to be poor.. or worse yet, middle class.
What ends up happening is that a Republican screws up the economy and creates a deficit and then a Democrat has to raise taxes to pick up the mess, then Republicans scream "flaming tax-raising liberal" and the populous gets upset that they pay more taxes, but more likely, they don't pay much more because these people are in the lower half of the wage earners.
Trickle down economics does not work, when a CEO makes millions upon millions, that is more than comfortable living and plenty to invest in their company, if they wish.
Distributing wealth is an important part of stablizing an economy, granted you may not have a huge boom in the economy but at least it will be steady growth. Unfortunately the past 7 years we've seen money going to people who do not need it, for companies that have most of their workers out of the United States.
With these basic thoughts, i don't get why people favor a republican economy, except for the rich.
Reply to APB:
I like what you said…for the record, I have a green card, was born in Central America and grew up in Europe. I'm not an isolationist…the world gets smaller by the minute, that's why stupid tax policy in the US gets punished fast…there are other places to put your money if you're, "rich."
The United States, whether we like it or not, is still the best hope for peace and prosperity…sure, we spend too much, save too little but we are still the leading flag waver for freedom and opportunity. No other country contributes as much to the UN, to poor nations and when someone needs a handout. Name another world's richest guy (Bill Gates, W. Buffett) who give away the majority of their wealth to solve world hunger/illness. You don't see any Russian billionaires trying to save world hunger and please, don't even bring up the Saudis. They are stashing as many oil $ as possible before someone finally figures out that we have enough oil in Alaska and off the coast of Santa Barbara to stop invading sand dunes. Save a marine and ride a bike! Even better…Save a marine and sacrifice a few caribou!
The number of estate tax filings in the fourth paragraph should be in the thousands, not "millions" !
We does everyone break it down to lib vs. cons? It's about freedom, and property rights. EA wrote, "No other society in the history of the world has allowed people to obtain such enormous wealth."
I thought what I earned was my propery? I thought the premise of the USA was personal freedom (and responsibility), and taxation WITH representation, not representation for explicit taxation (amongst other things). I thought the constitution included both a "taking" clause that required remuneration, and a contract clause that prevented states from interferring with private contracts. And what I already paid taxes on was, well, already taxed… Why tax it again on my death? And FYI, most millionaires are self-made, with hard work, luck, and yea, enforceable contracts.
I don't believe that you can have a "fair" taxation system, but hey, life aint fair. People don't always start at the same level in this country, but they are, under the law, equal (woops, almost, some want to make it unfair to right past wrongs).
Some believe that the "govt" knows what to do with MY money better than I do. And they vote along these lines. Anyone who is for higher taxes can already pay higher taxes, there's even a form and an office at the IRS for this function. Shockingly, there are very few who do. How odd…
I know campaigns hire folks to make blog posts, but could the McCain campaign please not be so obvous about it?
Personally I favor a flat tax, but out of the two McCain is less likely to seek change in the system of taxation. So after that I would point out that the claim "incentives created", it does not work, the amount of money the Bush tax cuts saved the top 1% has not been reflected in the economic growth. Less then 25% has come back into the system.
Question about the 'trickle down economy': so Paris hilton decides whether or not to spending depending on her tax rate, right?
Get ready for even more taxation with misrepresentation.
You are so right Labor cannot
survive without capital. Where did the surplus go?? Why are we so in debt to China,
not to mention this failing econmy?
Guess we can blame it on this
unnecessary Bush War.
There's was a time in America when conservatives, both social and economic, had almost everything they wanted in government. That time was in 1890. In that year there was no federal income tax. There was no estate tax either. The overall aggregate tax in all states and cities was very low. There were no bothersome regulation for corporate business either. This was more than 10 years before the first Food and Drug act. There were some state labor and worker safety laws, many of which were voided by conservative courts that ruled them to be unconstitutional under the interstate commerce clause. In fact the recently enacted anti-trust laws were being more effectively applied against the nascent and weak labor movement than against the trusts. This was 21 years before the breakup of Standard Oil.
No one would question in 1890 that America was a Christian nation. Prayer in all public schools was unquestioned. There was strict censorship of the only media of the day: books, newspapers and magazines magazines, and this was not just for sexual content but for any content that could judged subversive. This was 29 years before Holmes famous "fire in a crowded theater" Supreme court ruling on free speech.
In short the Right had almost everything that they are seeking today. It was truly an age where government could be drowned in a thimble of water.
But was 1890 a good year for the American public at large? Why did America begin to reject this in elections starting with that radical socialist Teddy Roosevelt? Did the very wealthy, unfettered by income and estate taxes create good paying jobs that you could pay a mortgage with?
Did we even have a broad middle class back then?
Free will is an illusion anyway, so the rich aren't responsible for being rich and the poor aren't responsible for being poor. The brain makes many decisions without people being consciously aware of them.
Employment is overrated anyway:
Before I read this post, I'm going to make the assumption that either way they get richer. Who wants to make a bet?
Implicit in so many of these posts is the notion that the poor are where they're at because of lack of initiative or laziness. Part of this mindset is derived from our Puritan heritage. That was that God's rewards were not just in the next world but in the here and now and that the wealthy were enjoying God's blessings because of their righteousness, while poverty and destitution must be the result of some moral deficiency.
I have a very different perspective on this as the result of events that happened
to me starting in 2003. In that year I lost my IT job with a major financial services firm (Hint: The CEO of this company was ousted in October of 2007 after
presiding over an 8 billion dollar loss to the firm due to its investment in CDOs. He then exercised stock options that he had been granted at the start of his term to the tune of 145 million and then claimed that he did not have an overly generous severance package).
I'm very fair skinned and throughout my working life I have been frequently told
in interviews that my skin color was a good thing. Now at the age of fifty I heard
a different tune: I was too old for the job. This was never stated in a way that I
could use in a discrimination suit but was clearly insuinated in oblique ways. I
was only able to find temporary or contractual work that paid at best 75% of my
former pay with no health benefits. It was not until 2006 that I found a
comparable full time position at 10% less than my former comp.
This was the longest period of unemployment in 30 years of my work life. In hind sight it would have been smarter for me to have taken my 5 month severance and invested it in a small business but I had invested all of my work skills and knowledge in technology. Like Mr. Micawber I kept hoping against hope that
something would come up. I will not relate in detail the bad things that happened to my business career and to my family life to avoid the charges of presenting a sob story, except that I will just say that it was devastating on all counts.
They say you have to walk a bit in another man's shoes to get a sense of what his life is about. I will never ever look at a homeless person or read about the financial stress of being working poor and think even remotely that is all their own doing. There but for the grace of God, I almost went.
Tax the rich bastards !!!! They been screwing the average joes for decades.
Alot of talk is made about who should pay taxes based upon the total percent paid in the US economy. There are lots of comments about working hard and taking risks – commendable. However, if you earn 1 million dollars and pay between 30-40%, clearly a large sum, you still have post tax income of $600,000 to 700,000 dollars which still places you in a very, very well off position. There is also the implied idea that hard work and risk is what it takes to get ahead; this is incorrect. It also takes opportunity be it the right place at the right time, connections, pure luck, growing up in the right home, and a wide number of other possible opportunities. Opportunity is not always able to be made. There are burdens people carry in life, family tragedies are not uncommonly among them. Opportunity is rarely evenly spread in a society. Ahh! Society, such a great thing; something that has extended back long before the first written history. But why does society exist. It exists for the common good. Ultimately a society benefits us by making it possible to pursue our interests, ie: we don't have to spend every day scrounging for food, fighting to protect what is ours by tooth and nail (without society we would not have even achieved the stone age). In order to provide for a common defense be it via police or army, to provide for infrastructure for trade, travel, or social support as in healthcare, fire departments, schools, etc; there must be taxes. Those who have more have the greater opportunity to contribute while still having more in life than those who have been less fortunate. The reason there is an estate tax goes back to the founding fathers of this country; the desire was to prevent aristocracy. Post taxes, the well off will still have the capability to have provided for their children greater opportunity (think of our incompetent president who had he not had a rich powerful father would either have had to strive to gain an education and work hard building solid character, or would have been poor rather than president). Estate taxes should be strongly progressive above the level of the middle class. You want to favor your middle class as it is the foundation of a modern society; they are the workers who provide the economic base which supports wealthy individuals. The estate tax should be balanced so as to allow families to provide support for the children but only up to a certain point. Estates above a few million dollars should be strongy taxed so as to redistribute wealth. The wealthy become wealthy from their participation in society and thus ultimately owe a generous return to that society. The presence of great wealth has promoted formation of foundations as a form of tax sheltering. These foundations often provide good works, however, hundreds of millions of American dollars are sent out of the country when we have great problems within our borders, since this wealth is generated by our society, shouldn't this likewise be required to be spent on our society or taxed heavily when sent out of country. No matter how indirectly, the money generated within a society ultimately is the culmination of the work of a society's members and should therefore benefit the members of society.
To "Sad to hear" – Yours is an excellent argument, especially the points on the danger of concentrated wealth. It's interesting that some of the biggest critics of permanently eliminating the estate tax include Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Here are two who are clearly self made wealthy men but who recognize that our country is not well served by the kind of economic disparity that characterized 19th century Europe and America.
Historically in all Empires, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, and America is showing to be no exception whatosoever, but only worse, having learned nothing from history, especially as to why America was brought forth under God's inspiration! However all of them on their way to their downfall for sure. In real close examination, there is absolutely no difference between what McCain proposes as opposed to Obama. The Founding Fathers would beg to go back to their graves, now hearing all this "bitching" back and forth as to really which Emperor and King will be the only "salvation" for America and, really the whole wide world, while America's ever more inhumane and horrendous war machinery circles the globe and shooting to pieces the Emperor and King does not like, etc., with the claim to take a piece of America everywhere while in reality in pursuit of materil junk while humans are sacrificed in a large scale. Yes, the word abortion seems to be one of the "preferred" words flying back and forth plus other issues like gay marrieges etc., when in reality neither candidate should ever use this darts to shoot at each other. Since when has the USA Constitution been changed to say that from from here on the Commander in Chief, is the first and last word as to anything to be done etc. If America's Commander in Chief does not think, speakd and act like an Emperor and King, let that a one prove otherwise. Socialism/Communism at its worst, with sending the bill to be paid to a future generation to be paid. George Washington said this: "Overgrown military establishments are under any for of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican liberty". James Madison said this: "Of all enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because in comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known istrument for bring the many under the domination of the few". To sum it all up this from Thomas Jefferson: "The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, in the name of funding, is bur swindling futurity on a large scale". Oh yes! and for sure especially the conservatives claiming that the Founding Fathers could not forsee the present world condition. So, that is why America is now overrun by millions of illegals, with putting the blame on them even by the ones who hired them and more and more one finds government employs them also. Why is it necessary now to choose between two languages? Oh not to accomodate things for illegals? Besides, as the present Emperor and King claims are righteousness for America, this nation is now the mass grave of over 50+ millions of unborn babies, and the butcher shops keep adding daily thousands more, while he constantly ask God to bless America on its way to make the world a paradise! America the Nation under God, and says it trust God? Never has Christianity been so insulted as presently is done by America!
Teacher, your analogy assumes that you are being paid to assign grades to reward students. You would then have to decide whether it is better to reward the harder worker (or more talented) or reward equally. If you are in fact being paid to teach the students math, you might use your test results as feedback on which students had mastered specific skills and which had not and you might (shockingly)decide to help the students with lower test results by offering more assistance or a different approach and help the students with high test scores by offering more advanced problems. You might have the time to do if the general population saw education as valuable and was willing to pay taxes to fund it.
As a side note. In my high school geometry class at least one third of the class openly cheated while the teacher read a book or left the class during tests. That one third received high marks. Perhaps you could work that into your analogy.
If balancing the budget is the most important issue, then the issue of government spending deserves just as much (if not more) scrutiny than the tax plans for the two candidates. Even if Obama manages to raise tax revenues he will still increase government spending (or at least won't focus his policies around it). Big government and the spending that comes with it will always be a pillar of the Democratic Party. From what I see in the charts, McCain's plan makes everybody better off versus Obama's which leaves some people better off but others worse. More importantly, McCain has promised to reduce spending especially in the earmark and pork barrel departments. The best part is he has a history of following through with that promise! All this makes McCain's plan Pareto optimal to Obama's.
PS. My internet spell check does not recognize Obama but is fine with McCain. I'll vote with Firefox…
Has anybody out there read Atlas Shrugged?
Hogwash – flat tax. Bring back a truly progressive income tax. Sales and value-added taxes are regressive. Tax all income – including capital gains – the same. Income is income is income. Why penalize the wage-earner or reward the investor? This all started with that fishbrain Reagan and it hasn't gotten any better since. Tax ALL income for FICA/Social Security/Medicare. That'll solve the Social Security issue. Cut taxes on the wealthy – bushwa and bull hockey! Get a life! Tax the morons who came up with "starve the beast." Government employment can be efficient and effective. Look at the private sector if you want to see inefficiency, bloated CEO perks and salaries and overall stupidity, inefficiency and corruption. We'll be squeezing all of that out of the system for the next ten or twenty years, just like the 1930′s. We don't need a super-rich aristocracy (pardon me – plutocracy – in this country. We need motivated individuals. Taking the gloves off the estate tax, just like Buffett and Gates believe – although I believe that Gates is "the dark side" – will do just that.
Atlas Shrugged – boy, have you people drunk the koolaid…
As one of the folks who would fare most poorly under the Obama policy, I only have this to say: I could vote Republican and save about 8% of my taxable income, but then I'd feel compelled to spend the 8% saving trying to undo their misguided social policies. Or, I could siimply vote Democratic. Either way, I'm 8% poorer.
CitizenL, "The problem with wealth and posessions is that you become obsessed with keeping it and getting more than the next guy."
What do you expect when as soon as you get some money, EVERYONE wants to yank it right out of your hands? The IRS, the charities, the friends, the churches, the people that come out of the woodwork, not to mention the family (you know, the ones who have known you all your life and know all your secrets)? And believe me, don't think for ONE second that a single donation will shut any of these people up, they'll just come after you as soon as they squander it all away. If you have any left, someone WILL tell you how to spend it. Just check out the comment section to this blog. Seriously, what kind of behavior do you expect???
What folks on this blog do not understand is that the tax code favors the rich because they are are the only ones who benefit from tax free exchanges, lower estate taxes, foundations, etc. They can afford the accountants, lawyers, and advisors to learn how to use the 9,000,000 +/- words in the tax code to their advantage. We mere peasants just keep slugging away, one day at time!
What JimmLearn does not appreciate is that the top 5% of wage earners pay over 53% of all federal income taxes. The higher wage earners SHOULD gain favor because they pay MORE in tax dollars than the lower wage earners. You get what you pay for. And if you would rather spew propaganda, well just ask anyone of the millions of illegal immigrants in this country why they choose to live here rather than somewhere else.
Wow… Lots of people here *cough* I can see that people on both sides are coming in to this with preconceived notions that they are obviously not willing to take a look at.
Consider these two possibilities though – and I wont even speak on an individual level which plan is better for people, obviously, as individuals, it is the one that will save you the most money. If you want to give more – you can donate directly to a fund meant to support our veterans, or save the environment, or whatever your particular interest is. I am going to speak about which is better for the economy in general.
One line of thought goes that by taxing the wealthy less – the wealthy are encouraged to invest more: improving the economy.
The other is that by taxing the poor and middle class less – the money is more likely to circulate: thus improving the economy.
I ask one simple – common sense – question. Why do people invest? To make money. Ultimately any investment that generates money does so by selling goods or services to someone. Even stocks and bonds are a tool for corporations to raise money so they can invest in themselves, expand, and get MORE money from their customers.
What helps generate more sales, and move more money around… an increase in the sale of $10000 handbags, or an increase in the sale of $2 bread? Granted, both could be AS good for the economy if they kept selling at a proportional rate… But the bread selling is a certainty, people need to eat. When you already have 20 bags in a variety of colors, a masseuse to work out the shopping stress, and someone to follow you around and tend your every need – ever – how much of that extra is going to go into the bank? Just sitting there, doing much less for the economy?
The poorer you are, the less you can save, and the more the money circulates. Ultimately it still ends up in the hand of the man selling the bread and hiring the workers, but it travels around a bit more – and gets a bit more food in peoples bellies this way. It's sad, but true.
Let's look at this from another angle… You have ten million just sitting in the bank. A tax change could take it down to nine million and give all your customers more money, or take it up to eleven million and give your customers LESS money. Which would make you invest more in your store? Which would encourage you to leave that money sitting in the bank – doing much less for the economy than if you spent it on drawing in that new cash the government gave your customers.
Of course, there is a line. If you tax the wealthiest Americans too much investment will stop… But we are sooo far from that line we couldn't see it even if we really strained our eyes.
Just give the people money who will actually be compelled to spend it instead of keeping it somewhere safe, keep the estate tax low enough that people continue running their parents businesses and drawing in at least as much cash as goes out before they kick the bucket themselves, and keep siphoning money out of the top so that the top has a reason to sell food – medicine – and fun to the bottom and middle and the economy will do OK.
The natural inclination of money is to flow up – not trickle down. If it helps keep food on tables and those at the top can still stay right where they are – enjoying their handbags, pools, and french hookers, while others manage the stores and businesses that suck the money right back up to the top again: thats the plan we should use. Its not the best system, but it is the best system that still works.
What't the difference between a flat-taxer and a flat-Earther?
Don't know? Yeah, I can't tell the difference either.
The WSJ ha a report on the flat-tax/fair-tax promoters and surprise surprise, we see some of the wealthiest individuals pushing this plan and financing the propaganda for it. Check it out:
In particular, be sure to check out the graph:
This tells it all. Under the flat/fair-tax the ONLY people who see their taxes reduced are those maked more than $200,000/year. EVERYONE ELSE PAYS MORE. The exception being those making less the $15k/year get a gimmicky "prebate" clearly done so that the argument can be spun that the flat/fair-tax doesn't just benifit the wealthy.
And yes, I do know how to spell "had" and "benefit." Time to lose this Blackberry and get an iPhone. Maybe I'll use my middle-class stimulus package for this.
HEY! LOOK! Tax relief for the middle-class can stimulate the economy too. Where did that myth of only tax breaks to the wealthy can stimulate the economy come from. Hmmm. I wonder if it could be the same crew that came up with the fair-tax snake oil? I wonder what I'll hear if I turn on my AM radio?
As someone has already mentioned, the loaded phrase, "But one thing is clear: Mr. Obama sees taxes as a way to ease inequality, while Mr. McCain sees them as a way to encourage economic growth by helping the top"
can just as easily be turned to read just as clearly,
"It's unlikely either plan will be implemented as is. But one thing is clear: Mr. McCain sees taxes as a way to increase inequality (pay favor to his army of lobbyist friends), while Mr. Obama sees them as a way to encourage economic growth by helping the middle-class."
How does this completely unsubstantiated statement make it into the WSJ? I think we may have an answer:
People in the top 1% are more likely to save a higher percentage of their gains from the McCain plan, whereas the people in the lower 80% are more likely to spend the gains from the Obama plan. This spending will help fatten the bottome lines of companies that offer consumer goods. Capitalism is always the most efficient answer, but the system works better when more people are involved in the system.
If we didn't have Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, which together take up the lion's share of the government's tax revenues, we could have a far lower maximum tax rate. Obama's tax plan will only make the middle-class, in the long-run, pay more of the total tax burden, as it was before Reagan, meanwhile punishing people for being successful. The government should not be entitled to 60% of people's income.
George Bush gave the middle-class tax cuts. Under Bush, everyone, middle-class and wealthy, got a tax cut. He cut taxes across the board. The only reason the Bush tax cuts benefited the "wealthy" the most, the highest-earning 1%, is because the highest-earning 1% pay about 68% of the total tax burden. The bottom-earning 50% only pay 3% of the total tax revenue.
I am not in favor of any tax increases until the govt figures out a way of rewarding GOOD behavior instead of bad. For ex: A pregnant woman of lesser means will not marry the baby's daddy b/c she will lose Section 8 free housing, food stamps, WIC, utility assistance, etc. She will stay single and the baby's daddy will quietly move in and enjoy the benefits being received by momma and baby. Why not cut these benefits out UNLESS the momma and daddy are married? Daddy will be much more inclined to marry momma b/c he will legally enjoy govt benefits. This would help to build families and bring up a responsible generation. Speaking of a responsible generation, I think the draft should be reinstated. Young men and women of today need to be taught discipline, accountability, responsibility, and a trade. The military could do this for us….and reduce unemployment for that age group…and reduce the crime rate. Obama just wants to raise taxes to dump our money into a failed system. If we're gonna spend the money, lets fix the system.
Why has it suddenly become so shameful in this country to earn a living using your brain instead of your back? I feel like I am one of the shamed b/c I own stock and reap the benefits [and losses] of my investments. What people don't understand is that I worked hard w/my back, pinched pennies, and sacrificed so that I could get the money to invest. We all have the same opportunity. Its all about choices.
Wow. I'm so tired of the trickle-down, low-tax crowd. I would love for the U.S. Government to stop collecting all taxes from anyone who wants to opt out. The resulting fallout would be so frickin entertaining. Hey buddy, you wanna drive down this street, it's gonna cost ya! Public school would be just like Private school; who needs vouchers, write a check please. Call 911, credit card number please. Wanna vote? Please pay your portion of (insert elected official)'s salary please. You didn't expect them to do their job for free did you? What job you ask? Inspect new drugs, toys from China, VA hospitals, you gonna pay someone to check your peppers for salmonella? Want soldiers to "Protect your Freedom"? Well, we can't put a price tag on supporting our troops can we? Why do fake Christian, wannabe Cowboys talk so tough, but are scared sh*tless when it comes to taxes? Why do they blame most tax issues on "lazy welfare freeloaders" who only get assistance btw if they have children or are disabled? I don't think any tax-cowards here are bold enough to say "screw taking care of children", no matter how messed up their parent/parents are; but even if you'd be more than happy to let people who are mentally disabled fend for themselves in the urban jungle (I don't know how many schizophrenic people work in the cubicle next to you guys), that position has got to hurt your chances of getting a good seat in heaven doesn't it? After all, Jesus said that he is the only Judge, and he taught that we will be judged by how we treat the least amongst us. Think about where your taxes are really going cowards.
Obama's Taxation Policy provides a fair balance. More than that it is needed for the country to progress as a whole. If we go the current way we would become like any third world country. We would have 60% struggling to eat twice a day while the top 0.1% think about how many boats to buy.
How much money does one really need? Earning millions from this country and yet seeing a fellow contry men suffer with hunger is not patriotic. Top 1% would still be making in millions in a year after their tax pay.
Please do not even for a second assume that people do not like to save or become rich. Need and necessity drive people to have no free money. It is the government that needs to provide a level playing field by providing the opportunity. Atleast give every one a chance to fight and earn some. Not every one is born the same, but atleast should have same oppportunities to earn food.
I ask one question, why did McCain reverse his tax opinion. Up until recently he severly critized Bush Tax Policy becuase of its obvious benefits to the rich. Why the reversal?
Think every one, if a country is to truly prosper, it can only do so when every one has a practical opportunity at succeeding.
I definetly think Obama's plan works for the better of all Americans. How can anyone see it differently? It's a sad state of affairs for the Nation when people actually think a plan to make the the Rich get richer and the poor get poorer is a sound plan to improve the economy. Under McCain (like Bush) it's all about "I have mine, who cares about you".
I earned 1.6 million last year and paid 542k in federal taxes alone, not counting Social Security tax, Medicare tax, state tax, property tax, and sales tax. Don't tell me I'm not paying enough. Why doesn't the dark horse entry talk about hosing corporations? Think about it.
i work at 500 company that does good during bad times an I see first hand why this world class bussiness does so good it takes the an beat's down the worker . You sob that run this world would burn in hell with scum that you put in office.I hope live long eoungh to see people with balls take ovwer in this land of sheep baaaa
Number one priority should be a balanced budget. Two methods just like personal finance save and earn. Government savings should be in the form of freezing budgets at current levels (no adjustments for inflation or population growth) except for infrastructure improvements. Simplifying the current tax system to close loopholes, and then wait. It would make politics boring, and the media would have to find real news. Benefits of a balanced budget… 1.) Help to ease economic volitility 2.) IF the gorernment needed to borrow money it could then do so at more favorable rates.
Share the wealth??? That's all I hear. Just because those of us who are wealthy….we should apologize or feel bad for those that can't get it right. Give me a break! And just because someone has money doesn't mean they don't work for it. Sorry I'm not a laborer but everyone makes their decisons in their life……my husband and I raise a family, we get up at 5:30 am every morning. We both work and my husband puts in over 70 hours a week. I will never apologize for being rich. By the way we came from nothing and made it. Stop whining everyone…….
What one has to remember is that those who would benefit most from McCain's plan are only a couple hundred thousand Americans, the vast majority (statistically 90+%) of whom were born into their wealth. Even those who weren't born into their wealth had advantages in other ways: such as what they were taught by family, who and what they came into contact with during their lives, their genetics, etc. So forgive me if I don't feel sorry for the super-rich who have to pay slightly more in taxes. They have no reason to complain. If they were born into the same family as the janitor in your building, and ran into the same experiences in life, then they would be that janitor. Even if they work hard, they're still just LUCKY.
Why should I pay for all the deadbeats who get paid to have kids. I am considered rich by Obama standards and I am falling behind. If Obama raises my taxes he will be kicking me out of my house.
If you are going to post a number or statistic, please site your source. While most are making valuable contributions, some of us are just bloviating on false assumptions and bent numbers.
I've heard enough. I find these tax proposals outrageous. It's economically proven that wealth trickles down from the top. Any smart person understands that the smartest, hardest working, most productive people are the only ones that generate economic growth. For example, a rich person invests ten million dollars for an opera house, then people get to watch opera. Case in point: just look at how much the top executives at Enron, Arthur Anderson, Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and Lehman Brothers have done for our country. And due to radical liberal nut job regulations, how were they awarded? With nothing more than multi-million dollar golden parachutes. Due to the increases in spending and investment that this change would create, wealth would then trickle down, and the poor in turn would be better off. With that said, the bottom quintile should be the ones paying taxes, preferably as much as 60%, not the rich. Clearly, Income tax on the top 1% needs to be repealed all together, creating more of an incentive for the lazy slobs in our country to work harder and make something of themselves as the rich have done.
Outside of "political realities", I've never heard a reasoned explanation regarding why a flat tax is a bad idea. Anyone have one?
The fact of the matter is that, historically, Democratic fiscal policies have been much better for the economy than Republican ones as measured by average growth and real income over the last several decades. This may have more to do with proper oversight than tax policy, but claiming that slightly left of center policies crash economies is foolish.
The wealthiest Americans do not necessarily pay more taxes. In fact I would venture to say that they escape most of it through loopholes. Or other crazy things like Rockefeller getting a government farm subsidy to plant rice in his pond so he and his cronies could go duck hunting. Wealthy folks have tax advisers and strategists for these things. You can bet that McCain didn't have to pay for most of his 13 cars. Some are likely listed as company cars for Cindy's business and are a business expense, and thus a tax rightoff for the company. It would be nice if when businesses had profits that trickled down to the little people, but it really hasn't so far. The oil companies have made billions in the recent price hikes, but they certainly haven't passed it along to consumers.
If tax cuts ALWAYS increase revenue, then logic states that 0% tax will be the highest revenue generator. Is that true?
Corp tax must be reduced so they can invest in creating jobs? If that is true why did corporations have 100s of billions of dollars of uninvested income last year? Why did MSFT just announce $40B of reinvestment in itself?
The wealthiest 1% pay more dollar amount because they pay a percentage of what they make – same as the bottom..well…80% if we're talking those making less that 250k. We pay a percentage tax, not a dollar amount. The rich pay "more" taxes because 15% or a higher number is more than 15% of a lower one. It's basic math. Also, those of us making less than 250k or 40k are not lazy. Some comment at the top says "They could have gone to college and earned degrees and then became productive citizens". Well, guess what? A lot of people in my class have a household income (including parents) of less than 50k a year. We have scholarships, student loans, and part time jobs. And we're still struggling to pay our way to what you call 'productive citizenship.' My family is massively in debt and I am having to spend more time at work making minimum wage and less time at school to help out. Does this make me less productive? It's certainly harming my education – but I don't want to see my family lose the house we have spent 10 year paying for. Scholarships don't pay for food and housing. These unworthy lower class citizens you poke fun at are not in school because they are working hard at the jobs that make your life at the top possible – picking your food, building your roads, cleaning your office and you house – in order to feed and support their families. It's not that we are lazy and don't want to go to school to better ourselves. It's that sometimes life comes down to the piece of paper from a college or the pieces of paper that buy food.
I'm voting for Obama. I'm not ashamed to be middle class. And, should we lose our house, I won't be ashamed to be lower class. However, I will be pissed that my education has to end because of rising health care and national interest rates because of the people who did not work the system honestly and received multi million dollar severance packages while their employees lost their jobs and their shareholders (you investors) lost their life savings.
If trickle down worked, why is my boss cutting employees and hours despite making 1 million more than last year? he doesn't want to pay the new minimum wage. For those of us that have worked for him for years, we are losing our raises – he says we will be making enough in January and don't need to be making that 50 extra cents we have earned over the years. The tax credit I get for being a working student is a pittance. 300 dollars a year. Woohoo. The government paid for 2 textbooks. Too bad I still have to find a way to buy groceries this month. Good thing the soup kitchen is across from my university.
This chart demonstrates why McCain will lose. Americans have a basic sense of fairness and the latest financial crisis reminds us how the elite have taken advantage of the rest of the country. Voters are taking out their anger over the bailout by focusing on McCain's policy that will continue to tilt toward the rich. John McCain, why won't you just adopt some of the "best ideas" of the other side and add a couple of percentage points to the higher tax brackets? This single issue will keep you from winning the White House.
The crazy thing is, those of us at the top don't care about paying a little more in taxes!
Just wanted to point out that paying the government more in taxes does not necessarily equal better services for the poor and middle class. Where I grew up the local public school spent approximately $4,000 more per student per year than the local private school, yet everyone agreed that the private school kids got a better education. This is because monopolies, even well-intentioned government ones, tend to perform less well than organizations in a competitive environment. Also look at Canada, which admirably provides health care for all of its citizens – and yet the wealthy ones come across the border to the US for faster and more technologically-advanced treatment. It's not just about getting more money, it's about what we do with it.
Our government should do what it can to encourage capital investment and business growth in America, because that is what has led to our incredibly high standards of living. Capital is more free than people – if taxes go up (or costs of regulation, for that matter), the money and jobs go elsewhere. How many Americans are planning to follow them to China, India, or Brazil?
So, in terms of tax policy, the government should do what it can to encourage wealth production in our country. And in terms of social welfare, the government should do a better job of spending that money so that everyone in our country has access to a good education and the opportunities that can lead them to be net contributors to rather than net dependents of the system.
You don't create equality by pulling down those at the top. You create it by giving those at the bottom a boost. Cuba is a much more equitable country that the USA – everyone is pretty much equally dirt-poor. I presume that is not what most Americans want for our country.
I would like to see the government tackle either plan but first eliminate the AMT. This is the worst type of tax!
how can you say the rich do not benefit more from the us system? the rich are the ones that are well, educated, have excellent lawyers and tax lawyers that know the system inside and out to pay less money. to say that we should discriminate poor people because they decided not to get education and make more money is the most ridiculous statement i've read.
i do agree that business bring jobs to communities. HOWEVER, BIG BUSINESSES DO NOT GIVE JOBS TO THE POOR. big business give jobs to the educated. people growing up in bad school districts who can't afford to go to college because they have to take care of their family will never be hired by big businesses. in general, it's a flawed system.
Obama is my man!!!
I keep this around for discussion like this.
Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.
Suppose that every
day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten
comes to $100. If
they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it
would go something like
* The first four men (the poorest) would pay
* The fifth would pay $1.
* The sixth would pay $3.
* The seventh $7.
* The eighth $12.
* The ninth $18.
* The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men ate
dinner in the restaurant
every day and seemed quite happy with the
arrangement, until one day, the
owner threw them a curve.
"Since you are all such good customers," he said,
"I'm going to reduce the
cost of your daily meal by $20."
So, now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group
still wanted to pay
their bill the way we pay our taxes.
So, the first four men were unaffected. They would
still eat for free.
But what about the other six, the paying customers?
How could they divvy up
the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his
'fair share'?
The six men realized that $20 divided by six is
$3.33. But if they
subtracted that from everybody's share, then the
fifth man and the sixth man
would each end up being 'PAID' to eat their meal.
So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be
fair to reduce each
man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he
proceeded to work out the
amounts each should pay.
And so:
* The fifth man, like the first four, now paid
nothing (100% savings).
* The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
* The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%
* The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25%
* The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22%
* The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16%
Each of the six was better off than before. And the
first four continued to
eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the
men began to compare
their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the
sixth man. He pointed to
the tenth man "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I
only saved a dollar, too.
It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should
he get $10 back when I
got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in
unison. "We didn't get
anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for
dinner, so the nine sat down
and ate without him. But when it came time to pay
the bill, they discovered
something important. They didn't have enough money
between all of them for
even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college
professors, is how our tax
system works. The people who pay the highest taxes
get the most benefit from
a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for
being wealthy, and they
just may not show up at the table anymore. There are
lots of good
restaurants in Europe and the Caribbean.
David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Economics
536 Brooks Hall
University of Georgia
Check out the "All" column. I don't know what to think.
i shu be glad tat wsj open up bord for us no reeders to poste r pinyuns on it. go bama in 08. we gonna hand it 2 repubs tis fal. long tim go wsj onlee alouwed subscibers 2 post and it was lik b bak n skul, all big wurds and such. nou, nywun cn poste n wee cn sho da rich repubs r smartz. go bama in 08. we b 4 hope n chang. u shud not ned 2 go 2 kollig 2 get good job. sum of us hav lotz kidz 2 feed. we ned munee 2. go bama in 08. tanks wsj 4 alown me 2 post – tis da americn way. my speln be litl mesd up kuz i b tipn on sell fon. go bama n 08
To the "Middle class and Poor class": If Obama taxes the rich, they move abroad. India's socialists governments punished the rich for 50 years but the rich just moved abroad and thrived (zubin Mehta, Mittal Steel). Then in the mid-ninties it occurred to them that socialism improves the situation temporarily but they need to make the poor work to get things. So, they opened up economy and allowed competition. Now obama wants to tax businesses that outsource. Guess what! They will move to a country where taxes are low. Guess who loses jobs? In the same way, if he taxes me more, I will close down a non-profit school that I run, fire some employees who maintain our property, cut down pet projects. Guess who loses jobs?
Brilliant obama sporter, gave me a good start to the day.
I see no mention of the planned increases in capital gains and dividend taxes mentioned by Obama or the differences on corporate tax rate policy for both candidates. These tax policies are huge issues since 58% of American families hold stocks either in or outside of 401k or IRA plans. Obama also promises to increase taxes that multinationals pay due to the unique US policy to tax corporations at US rates no matter where they do business. It is the only industrialized nation to do this and puts US corporations at a distinct disadvantage. Obama would make this disadvantage even greater.
Obama's plan creates an incentive to be poor. McCain's plan rewards those who have succeeded.
Therefore, if Obama wins, I may just live on my savings for 4-8 years. if McCain wins, I'll keep making more money.
After all, they can't tax what I decide not to earn.
Maybe we should tax rich folks for bitching!! If bitching were an Olympic sport, rich people would easily win the gold. All this "work hard" crap is BS. Look at our President…dumb but rich will help you overcome any hurdles and even get you to the White House. Meanwhile, dumb and middle class or God forbid poor, will get you no where. President Dubya is a prime example of why redistribution of wealth is not such a bad thing. Sorry rich folks, you won't be able to get the 8th home in the Hamptons…you'll have to live with only 7 homes. "Oh the humanity!! Damn those liberals." I'm glad we have a Democrat running for President that actually had to work his azz off to get to where he is…not just another silver-spoon fed true ELITIST.
Bar Stool Economics
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers, he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings) .
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings) .
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
'I only got a dollar out of the $20′, declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,' but he got $10!'
'Yeah, that's right', exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!'
'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'
'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls , journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics,
University of Georgia
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
I would think that the entire concept of a progressive tax unethical, were it not for the even more insane corporate pay I witness every day as a fund manager. I mean, I have tried–unsuccessfully usually–to limit pay through proxy contests, through investor education, I'm afraid to say it, but nobody seems to care enough to put an end to the madness. Why should a CEO who comes into a large company and sells it 3 years later ever walk away with $60MM, its unhealthy. And he/she gets taxed at 15%, because its in the form of deferred stock comp, but someone earning that same salary gets taxed at 35-40%!
Sure, entrepreneurs are one thing, but most upper managements are in one way or another parasitic, attaching to the host and draining more resources than are returned to shareholders in terms of real value creation (Steve Jobs excepted).
I digress, the main point of this retort is that America needs to scrap the entire tax system now, because it disincentives production and incentives consumption. Many of the country's problems stem from this relationship: obesity, energy consumption, our profound trade deficit and a negative savings rate. We are spending ourselves into the poorhouse.
All great nations find a better balance in these fundamental ying and yang, or suffer the fate of other mismatchers like Rome, England and France.
Really the credit crisis today has a lot to do with the years and years of accumulated deficit spending and overconsumption. We really aren't benefitted as a society by buying twice as much crap at half the cost if the flow of funds results in a total exit from our economy.
I make $15K a year. Overall, I pay less than $100 in taxes a year, if that (last year, I paid nothing); when I turn 25 next year, the government will give me money thru the Earned Income Credit.
I do not deserve a tax cut, because I don't pay any taxes. The people that pay the most in taxes, the top 1%, ought to get the highest tax cut.
For those that offered and read the previous bar analogy. I offer a different perspective.
> Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not
> show up anymore.
> In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is
> somewhat friendlier.
If the rich man hadn't stolen the other guys pension money, excised their property through lobbying & legislation, looted the public companies they ran for personal gain, sent the poor man off to war, created the current financial Armageddon with the mortgage stuff aka loosening lending criteria in the name corp. profits and Sr. executive option pay outs (Cant blame the brokers, that would be like blaming the soldiers in war for combat), created public policy again via lobbying $$$ to create pro corporate policies that are anti consumer but protect profits/bonus (applies to all industry), political Ear Marks, Farm Subsidies etc. etc. etc., maybe the "Rich" man wouldn't have to worry about being beat up by his "buddies".
Maybe that rich man should be happy that he is still allowed to walk free in this great country with the XXX millions he stole from the common man and economy through greed and miss management? Frankly he ought to pick up that bar tab and simply say "Thank You".
Executives loot millions. In some cases 100′s of millions while they run the public companies into the ground. Then parachute out and the elitists call that "Smart Business" and earned/well deserved income. Couple pats on the back by his cronies as they compare jets and off to the next victim (the general public). What ever happened to pay for performance? I guess that only applies at lower mgmt ranks & day labor.
The common thug robs the local gas station of $50 and he gets a couple years in jail.
For me I would rather defend myself against the poor thug vs. the executives/lobbyists/hedge funds/politicians. At least I have a chance against the poor thug.
That's called American justice.
Would it really hurt the rich pay more taxes. They live a charmed life. They know not the struggles of their cook, maid, valet, or the factory worker that made their clothes or the tile in their kitchen. They have a societal obligation to ensure that all Americans have their basic needs met. Food, shelter, health care, welfare, social security. Being born to this earth is a craps shot; we all have not been given the same opportunities to succeed. I don't feel guilty asking the top.01% to put off buying another abstract painting or a smaller yacht so that thousands of Americans get thier basic needs met or get a chance to succeed. Vote Obama!
They way I see it wealthy people generally don't put money under their mattress, most don't want to spend it like Paris Hilton does but would rather invest in tax free muni-bonds, stocks, CD's, start-up businesses and whatever. All of which keeps the money turning. With higher taxes more goes to a wasteful government rather than out into the public to create jobs. Right?
IN THEORY yes, the more money the super rich have the more money there is flowing through the economy. Of course, that's assuming a lot and gives the .01% way too much benefit of the doubt.
A better way to stimulate the economy is to build up the infrastructure in the country (actually decent education, better public transport) so that the vast majority of the country becomes more educated, productive and (in turn) will end up redistributing the wealth more fairly.
Too many will never agree with this logic though, because in their mind the rich are "productive, hard working, etc" and the poor are "unmotivated, unproductive, lazy, etc." Because anyone who doesn't earn the top 1% is obviously laying around drinking beer or smoking pot all day while our robot armies churn out the profits the rich are banking. Morons.
As my name suggests, I think that most of you are completely missing the point. I understand that people at the bottom would like the wealthiest to pay more, but in all honesty they already pay a disproportionate share of taxes already. Between state and federal, an individual who makes a couple hundred thousand is already paying an effective rate of 38-40 something %. The top few percentile earners are already supporting well over half of all taxes collected. On top of that, they are the ones who actually create jobs and wealth for others by investing their cash into new businesses. Without them at the top there would be no jobs for everyone else. Taxing them until they move their money offshore is not a laudable goal. Giving more tax breaks to the middle class is good but ultimately doesnt create more jobs or productivity. Giving a poor person an extra $1000 might help them but isnt allowing them to in turn hire someone else. While giving someone at the top a little break will greatly increase the amount they can reinvest into the economy. The only real way to make this fair is by implementing a flat tax. What people dont get is that the wealthy get away with paying less tax by exploiting loopholes in the existing tax code. If we did away with exemptions and closed these loopholes and implemented a flat fair tax the amount that the government actually received would go up despite the effective rate being lower because overall compliance would be higher. Do you guys have any idea how much the govt. spends to run the IRS just to enforce this antiquated and unduly complicated tax code….its astronomical.
Thank you to the professor from UGA for laying it out in simple yet effective form. Go BullDogs.
There will always be inequality, no matter how you try to slice the pie. Some pieces will just have better filling, some pieces will just have better crust.
Taxes are an inevitable portion of all our lives, they've been around for since man walked the earth. I don't like them and the U.S. government doesn't handle the collection and distribution of them very well. It's unfortunate that many of the comments on this post are an argument of hard work vs. lazy work. To build wealth, it might take 70 hours a week and loads of University debt but that's not becoming the case anymore. One of the most important taxes mentioned in the original article is the Estate Tax or sometimes referred to as the Death Tax. As much as I hate taxes I believe this is an extremely important piece of legislation, without it our countries vast wealth could end up in the hands of very few. First off kids don't need to be born billionaires or even multi-millionaires. When they are there is no incentive for them to aid in the progression of a society bound by classes. I'll assume a few people on this board may have attended a preparatory school and I hope they remember some of their esteemed classmates, just as I do. Wealth is a great part of this country; I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the belief that everyone has an opportunity to achieve such. Some of the best supposed rags to riches stories have been written of American citizens. What concerns me is the increasing amount of wealth in the hands of the super rich (ie: Forbes 400). No one on here can argue that some of these billionaire heirs ever had to work harder than the person working the three minimum wage jobs to support a family and dream of sending them to college. I repeat, no one can argue against this. Wealth gaps have spun out of control and they are creating an economic race that has already been won by heirs of fortunes with 8 figure incomes the day they are born. Argue tax policy all day and all night but do not denounce Estate Tax. It is an integral part of a progressive tax system that eliminates the problems faced in past and fallen societies where very few people controlled all the wealth for centuries.
If you need material to learn more you can read Bill Gates'(Microsoft Chairman) fathers book: Wealth and our Commonwealth by William H. Gates. For the non-readers a good video with Warren Buffett and the Senate Finance Committee http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFMwOu0cWpA.
The idea that easing taxes for the highest paid 20% of society will boost the economy for everyone is a fallacy we need to overcome. The main effect of tax breaks for these high-income earners is the encouragement of greed; we are seeing the effects of this now. The answer for our country is not to adopt a Swedish-style dampening of incentive to produce and innovate, but a middle ground tax policy that tapers the incentive the richer people get.
The argument that the Obama plan will convince people towards the bottom and middle from wanting to climb to the top, because they would be dissuaded by the tax rate they'll have to deal with if they got there, is ludicrous.
90 percent of all millionaires are first generation millionaires in America so these people are born into this money. The people that make the most money are the smartest and hardest working people in America and should not be punished for this in a capitalistic society that was built upon these premises.
at this current state pretty soon we will barely have a middle class. like in Russia it will be the same. The Rich And The Poor. (What middle Class?}
I wouldn't call it punishment, Logical Thinking, but fair. We all benefit from a fair tax system. It's not like with Obama's system there will be no wealthy people; in fact, there will be more!
There are trade offs in hiking taxes on the $250k and up crowd – where there are some serious negative side effects that are going to happen.
Example. I have a comfortable, $400k a year taxable income – at least $100k a year in dividends and capital gains. If my taxes go up substantially – the $20-25k or so it looks like from my reading – that $20-25k has to come from somewhere, and I have no choice but to cut our other spending. It sure isn't going to come from my kids educations, or our fixed things like house payments.
So where? We pay about $75k a year to household help (nanny, housekeeper, gardener, pool guy, etc..). We're going to cut that to $50k by reducing their hours and visits substantially – now for example the housekeeper will come once a week instead of two – that frees up the $25k to pay the taxes. The problem is that this is really going to hurt these folks – the housekeeper's income goes down 20% until she can find a new client – especially because others who employ them are planning to do the same. That means they then pay less taxes and more importantly, they will cut their spending since they'll have lower income – which lessens things like sales tax revenue.
If we can't get there with the reductions in household employment, the next step is to start eliminating the $25-30k in charity we give each year – while this raises the amount of tax, it will free up additional cash to make up for the tax hike.
Finally, we're already moving money to tax-free munis and out of dividend and other investments (we'd done a fair amount of investing in local start up businesses) to try to lessen the expected burden and to make up for the lessened risk/reward for those investments w/the higher tax rate.
Assuming we're not the only ones in this boat, isn't it likely that a tax increase will have much less of a positive revenue impact that people are forecasting? Our lifestyle will stay the same, but a whole bunch of people who depend on us are going to get hurt.
Most people miss the point. It isn't the money. It is social justice and raw politics. Rubbing a few rich guys and giving the money to the poor is good politics!
How most would fare Under Obama? Free lunch for everybody–like the "affordable housing".
Someone farther up said a flat tax would do the trick and I agree. After all I am one of those weird people call Mormons for Obama. Our church runs on a flat 10% tithe from every member. We give millions in welfare to our poor and in humanitarian aid to the world. We pay our bills and our leadership are good stewards of the money that is paid into the church. perhaps if the people of this country could look beyond the religious beliefs and examine how we manage the church's money and welfare program they could learn something.
Haven't we learned that trickle down economics do not work? I am sorry but those of us at the bottom of this ladder are waiting on a drink and dying of thirst. Someone up the way said that the poor could go to college and that everything is about choices. Sorry to disappoint you but that is not reality. I am in my mid forties and I am just now able to get a college education. My parents made too much money for me to get financial assistance for a college education but not enough to pay for my college. Therefore I did what most women of my generation in that position did, I married. We raised kids. He deserted me for a nice young floozie with a college degree and a big house. I finished raising the kids. Now me and my kids are in college together. We are all poor enough to get college education money. If I graduate before my kids I will be the first person in my family with a college degree. Just because you could get a degree doesn't mean everyone can. That is the problem with people that have things in this country. They think everyone can have what they have. I did for a long time too. Then my ex gave me a reality check. I actually thank God for him because I am a better person because I am not so self-righteous and I am no longer a Republican!
LotsOfTradeOffs – I completely agree, and foresee the same harmful (to society) lifestyle changes being made in my own home. I'm a few years into my legal career, make about the same salary… and would have no hesitancy jumping ship and taking my services to Britain/Germany/France/China for a few years if I'd be allowed to keep a larger portion of the fruit of my labor. Most of my peers in the Wall Street area seem to feel the same way.
As a brief aside, it really irks me when so many assume that it is alright to take from the rich because they were privileged… it simply isn't true across the board. I'm the first college graduate in generations in my family; my family was so poor that they literally could not afford a crib for me to sleep in as a child so they dug me a whole in the ground and lined it with a blanket. You know how I paid for college? By working my !@# off on the weekends/evenings while the rest of my peers were getting drunk and wasted. I did the same thing to get through law school… and now I'm in a job where I work eighty hours per week (more than so many of the sob stories you hear about people needing to work two jobs). Yet people are quick to look at my ~500k income (from work plus REI–I taught myself) and say that somehow I don't deserve an even greater portion of it? I literally had nothing going for and spent my youth trying to become something rather than chilling with a six pack… don't expect me to subsidize those that spent their youthful years in other pursuits.
The arguements that lower taxes stimulate the economy are likely a cannard, since most of the "economic growth" of the past eight years has been a speculative housing and finance bubble and war expenditures, not real capitol growth, as we are sadly seeing now. This is not just an economic arguement, it is a social arguement, we are looking at near complete meltdowns of social security and medicare, with medicare already insolvent. Without some form of revenue to stabilize these programs, we risk destabilizing another 13% of our economy (healthcare). The last 12-16 years were a mirage, they were growth at the expense of future growth and investment. As to comments like budding lawyer, who do you think subsidized your law schools, medical schools and colleges? Tax dollars.
I come from a family of immigrants. I am also first generation here, coming to America as a child. My parents started from scratch: no savings, no property, just their wits. I studied more than my peers in High school and college, got a PhD, started working on Wall St, and worked my way up to the same roughly ~$500,000. No one on Wall St who makes a good amount of money works a 40 hour week, in fact I forget the last time I did not have something work related to do on the weekend or at night. There is no time off except vacations. It is a price one pays for a high income. Unfortunately one also pays a second price, which is a bunch of people who think you owe them from the mere fact that you earn more than they do. And most galling of all, do so in the name of fairness, which invariably translates into "from each according to his ability to each according to his need". They flinch at being called socialist or communists, but incessantly, and perhaps unwittingly, quote Marx and Lenin. Many of the quotes from Barak Obama are little more than more gentile paraphrasing of Soviet newspaper headlines. If America turns towards this style of leadership one can only hope that it is like a disease that the country has to go through to acquire immunity to it. Unfortunately for those of us whose lifespan is limited it will be at least 4 years out of our lives that will have been damaged and that is no small amount.
The way I see it is that there are wealthy people who probably don't work (billionaires) and probably don't pay taxes as their wealth is kept off shore. Then there is rich or well-to-do people who work their tale off for 6 or 7 figures a year. Then there is the middle class that still works hard for 5 figures a year and is employed by the 7 digit earner. Then there are poor people who still work hard; but they don't pay taxes and they get all the perks. So really we should just have a flat tax starting @ $75k and ending @ $100m. Then make the capital gains tax progressive.
It is upsetting that so many people characterize the wealthy as evil and lazy. My husband and I started a business over 25 years ago. A 90 hour week or more is not unusual. We put everything we had into the business, so we have only owned our own home for a few years, drive used vehicles, and lived very conservatively (no fancy dinners, spas, etc.) Our hard work has finally started to pay off, we have invested most of our earnings, and we want to leave something behind for our children and grandchildren. We have just gotten into the "over $250,000 per year" group. Not all poor people deserve to be where they are, but we know a growing number of people who are able-bodied, but choose not to work. It is very frustrating to hear these people chant, "Tax the Rich!" Honestly, we feel like we are being punished for our success. Also, we have increased employee wages and benefits since we are now able to do so. If the government starts taking more money from us, our employees will feel it to. (Even if they aren't in a high income bracket!) We have heard the "tax the wealthy" slogan so many times, that we have already adopted a plan to cut back. Between the economy and the policies encouraged by so many politicians and people, we are very effectively discouraged! We always believed that the United States was supposed to be the land of opportunity, where if you work hard, you could attain your dreams. Now, if you work hard, you earn the privilege of supporting the other 95 percent of the people!
The core of the problem is that the middle and lower class provide the bodies to assure the wealthy to be able to stay wealthy…military, police, employees. If not for the laws and related enforcement, the wealthy would not be able to hold on to their wealth. The poor go to Iraq to secure oil for their mansions, yachts and suvs. The wealthy have much more access and influence on the law of the land. The wealthy have access to the best education, while I only had access to the community junior college. With the best education, and wealth generated connections, a cush job on wall street is easy to land. For a wealthy person to have to give up the third yacht make me want to play my tiniest violin for them. Their contributions make many elected officials puppets. They go to exclusive resorts on the holidays, I work the holidays. It is clear that the people in the white house dearly wanted this banking crisis to hold off until the election was won for them, and they are trying an enormous emergency bailout to get to happy days for the election. Some wonder what Obama did in Illinois before going to the senate. In 2004, he sponsored legislation preserving overtime pay for hourly workers. The economics of trickle down are based on supply, I prefer a demand based economic system, where the working person can spend and created demand for products instead of questionable products of style and fashion are hawked by ad campaigns to make consumers think they need the latest shoes, cell phone or gas guzzling suv.
As the weathy get wealthier the more responsibility they bear for the effects (results) – both good and bad – that they are having on our world. The millionaire, regardless of their social conscience changes the world more than a lower income person.
Money changes the world. When you earn a dollar and spend it you "buy" responsibility for its effects.
The reason we have education is to help our young to be able to survive. So what about a steeply progressive tax on earned money that must go to the education that our children need to live with the changes we've made?
For someone who's on the cusp of the $250K, who pays an already high amount of taxes, I'm disheartened by the fact that, because of my hard work, I'm now going to be required to pay more than than others. I'm not here to support those who prefer to be supported. I shouldn't be punished for reaching a certain level of success. And I shouldn't be grouped with those who make $1MM.
It is interesting to see just how out of touch the wealthy are. They use an analogy of ten people drinking at the bar, mostly off the wealthy. They forgot the other ten who cannot drink at the bar because they provide the backbone/infrastructure for the wealthy to be able to aquire and hold said wealth. Police, military, snow plowers, farmers, and various others who work to provide the booze for the drinkers. Health care is a right, not something to be denied because of pre existing conditions. Social security is a right, not something to be urinated away on pointless wars and bailouts for wealthy executives and their attendant parasites (lawyers, speculators, etc). Most of the time, compensation and wealth have very little to do with ability and hard work. Being born with a silver spoon gives one much more access to the cush work than being born with a fork stuck in one's rear. With any sort of luck, an Obama win can dilute the wealth disparity and avoid a revolution. A revolution is inevitable unless the peasants are treated better. Examine history.
The credit freeze is simply a realignment of creditworthiness standards, and the decline in real estate value is the bursting of a speculative bubble.
I guess I must be quite blunt about access to education. A poor working class family cannot afford to send their children to even a state college at $20,000 per year. The kid has to work and take on loans. Less study time, and the networking via the greek system is out. No access to old exams, no knowledge of rough vs. easy professors. An elate university is out of the question, so no networking and access to cush work recruiters. Wealthy parents can send their children to the best universities with no work needed by the student. Connections, parties, cush job offers. Said wealthy parent can move to the best suburban schools systems or go private. The poor are stuck with whatever their poor public school district can afford.
Some state that they will move to another country. Go. Maybe I can land your high paying cush job. My qualifications just don't include an elate college. Some talk about the hours they put in. Does this include commutes and booze fest conferences? A memo can do the same thing as an expensive conference. Some talk about their skill. It is easy to be a successful fund manager in a rising market.
responding to ckyddl – one isn't being "punished" by taxes for reaching a certain level of wealth, one is only being held responsible for the consequences of their behaviors. The work to achieve wealth involves energy use from a finite (fossil fuels) global supply, the resulting effects on climate, infrastructure, and the environment; resource consumption, even social institutions like schools. Taxes represent a fair way to deal with the "footprint" that making a living leaves behind. The more money you make the bigger your footprint, and the bigger your responsibility.
The truth is that the top 1% are not just "hard workers" or financial wizards. Most, but surely not all, have been placed in their position particially due to familial lineage. Monies handed down from family members that have allowed them to invest and live wisely. This is a good thing and requires years of financial planning. However, the redistribution of wealth is to aid those under 250,000/yr. and thus people who were not given these fortunate curcimstances. How many of those at 1% came from little? Not many. Regardless, the truth is, either we address the struggling middle class or we allow our communities and our country to go to "the bad place."lol Honestly, we cannot all live behind gates forever and there is a middle group that will be hungry given these times. If nothing else, a showing of our united effort in addressing the issue is needed. I believe the redistribution does this..because, seriously, the last 8 years has done the damage to this group. Let's not loose them.
You truely might be surprised at how many of us "rich" people were handed very little in terms of money and property . It is an easy rationalization , I suppose, to assume that I am more successful than you because I was "handed " something and you were not. Go ahead, keep believing this. My wife and I are both highly educated medical professionals. We earn in excess of $500,000 annually. We already pay nearly $200,000 in taxes annually. We are by no means "rich". Both of us have paid for our educations entirely on our own . Zero handouts. We save for retirement because there will be nothing left of Social Security although we've paid the maximum SS tax for nearly 25 yrs. Our son will pay for his education entirely witout financial aid, as we do not qualify. If we stop working, we will not be able to sit at home in our mansion eating lobster and caviar. We are middle class. We do employ 10 individuals, who recieve health insurance , profit sharing, generous paid vacation and holidays. Perhaps we don't feel like working so hard anymore, especially if we must pay even more taxes. I think we'll cut down on the work schedule, perhaps cut the staff by 25%(or at least reduce benefits).
Working "rich"…I get you…but our Public Education has really failed since so many "don't" understand. Reality Check's assumption proves what most of us have thought…there are people out there that thinks all of us who work hard and live nicely, have been handed down wealth. I came from a hard-working middle class family that had nothing whenever they got married and gave me nothing whenever I got married. They did however hand down a good "work ethic". You can trace my family tree back and no where were we Plantation owners nor did anyone "pass on any monetary or land wealth" . When each of us married, we went out and sought our own wealth through hard work. I was the first one in my family to get a college degree and I've since my senior year in high school and I have weathered one hardship after another throughout the last 40 years through recessions, and times whenever I was the only one with a job. Here in GA if you make a grad "B" or better in high school, you get a free College Education provided by the state lottery system called "Hope". Both of my children secured their college degrees through this system, So if you don't get a college education in Georgia, then you are just too lazy in my humble opinion.
We ALL pay too much in income taxes and all the other taxes piled upon each US citizen. The Government is so corrupt and money hungry. If you don't think the Pres. elect is going to "give you gas and pay your mortage" than you will be "jerked" into reality real soon.
Why doesn't American understand- when you lower taxes, you allow for economic growth. It's been proven time and time again in history. And that doesn't mean a disproportionate lowering; it means equality no matter what the class. Not only that but we all SHOULD know that when bureaucrats and big government takes over,especially by trying to mete out who should get what, disaster incurs. Most people can handle their money better on their own than the government. Remember the Soviet Union – it crashed under a government built such as this. Get ready, because the CHANGE people voted for isn't going to be what they thought.
I have an idea that seems fair to me. Repeal the 2 sets of Bush tax cuts and cut everyone's tax by $5,000. All tax payers get the same cut, if they paid less tax, give them a rebate. I recently read an article by someone blubbering that the Bush tax cuts were unfair to the wealthy, as they thought the wealthy should get the same percentage tax break. So reset that tax base, give all tax filers the exact same $5,000.
Speaking of unfair taxes, I have no children, but I still pay property tax to support schools. I'm done with higher education, why does my state still tax me? I drive well below the usual amount, why do I have to pay for roads? I do not fly, but I have to pay for the control of the airspace.
I'll tell you why we need to hike the tax on the rich even higher (as it stands I think current taxes are 50-64%).
Not because the rich benefit more from the services of Government, and not becuase the rich are piggybacking on the work of the poor.
No, it's simple economics really.
The dollar, which is a representation of value, backed by gold, was created to provide an efficient medium of circulation for value (in liue of barter).
The mass aggregate wealth amongst the rich (personal wealth such as CEO paychecks) is causing circulation of value to die down (as the money basically sits in banks).
To say that money earned is just as soon invested, is to do truth a disservice. True that money earned is invested, but on the large scale, far less money is invested as is earned.
So the personal bank accounts of the top 10% of the richest citizens are growing, the amount earned is disproportionate to the investment.
The consequence of these almost lewd earnings? The government must print more money to keep physical circulation of the dollar (the US currency) stable. Thus the value of all currency goes down.
To counter this either the Rich must increase their investments significantly (by thirty to forty percent, which is just a guesstimate) or else must GREATLY increase their charity efforts.
Indeed, whoever said that viscous cycles may spiral upward (and not just downward)where correct in that presumption.
On the other hand, we have the problem of outsourcing and tax havens. Companies may very well move business elsewhere should they find tax-laws unfavorable. Therefore we have the issue of balancing our taxs that, while not driving off companies from the US, will still bring in an optimal tax revenue from the top 10%.
It is truly a conundrum. :\
Forgive me for sounding more intelligent then I am and for being oh-so-wordy :P
-Jim jamesfalero [at] hotmail [dot] com
I have been an Obama supporter all along due to his advanced environmental and seemingly great plans about taxes and other various issues. After a little research however I am now seeing that his tax plan is really not benefiting anyone except the poor. A true middle class family does not fall under the $75,000 income range. They are above it. This entire plan seems to be robinhood-esque. Take from the rich to give to the poor. I am looking to make a fairly substantial income in my future but am discouraged under Obama's plan because it seems as though ones hard work is punished not rewarded as we are all taught it will be from a young age. In this economic situation we cannot risk a major revamp of the system in order to benefit those at the bottom of the food chain. I believe that the time needs to be taken to look at the situation and determine what needs to be done to benefit everyone, not just those at the very bottom or very top of the line. On that note, way to go Mr.Obama and good luck with the presidency but please for the nations sake and all the families that need some relief take time to consider the ramifications of all the proposed plans.
Obama is Robin Hood! Take from the rich and give to the poor!
The Wealth Report is a daily blog focused on the culture and economy of the wealthy. It is written by Robert Frank, a senior writer for the Wall Street Journal and author of the newly released book "THE HIGH-BETA RICH."