Bill Maher "Rich" Threads (Merged)

[Madeline]

Maddy, I'd be interested in your take on it being "Patriotic for Rich to Pay More" as per my question to Valerie.

Progressive tax rates are a weapon of choice for many a political theorist. The old-timey communists (Marx, Lenin) believed that tax rates should be steeply progressive. Many US tax pundits support progressive rates (at far less steep an incline) as a means of f-a-i-r-l-y distributing both the pain and the cost of government. In that the rich consume far more government services than the poor or middle class, they can fairly be asked to pay a larger share of same. This POV is often called "vertical equity".

I'm not really debating a progressive vs a flat tax in this thread, as no one is proposing a flat tax. What I am debating is the wisdom of shifting $700 Billion in tax burden away from the rich down on to the middle class and poor. However, if pressed, I'd personally support a flat tax because it would bring an end to loopholes and other evils of taxation.

I don't think many of you accept this truism: that $700 Billion has to come from somewhere. If not the rich, then who? YOU.

And, of course, you are correct that this has nothing to do with a flat tax...so why bring it up?

And no one is disputing a progressive tax...

Nor is the spin off question whether or not raising taxes on the top earners efficacious in terms of taxes entering the treasury.

The question is what you think is a...let's call it 'fair' level, considering the fact that the top 1% now pays 39%...

"The top 1% of households, which made 19% of pre-tax income, paid 39% of all individual income taxes."
Who pays taxes - and how much? A tax day perennial. - Apr. 15, 2009

Well, no one's effective tax rate currently is 39%, Political Chic, and no one is proposing that it should be. That's the proposed maximum marginal rate which will take effect unless the Bush limited-time-only tax cuts are renewed. The current top rate is somewhere around 36%.

Let's look at a millionaire for a moment.

0 to $16,750.......................rate 10%................$1,675
$16,751 to $68,000..............rate 15%................$7,687
$68,001 to $137,300...........rate 25%................$17,325
$137,301 to $209,250..........rate 28%................$20,146
$209,251 to $373,650...........rate 33%...............$54,252
$373,651 to $1,000,000..........rate 35%............$219,222

Total tax liability: the sum of all the brackets, or $320,307. That's an effective tax rate on the total income of 32%.

For simplicity's sake, let's pretend the expiration of the Bush tax cuts only affects the last bracket. (Apparently, instead it creates a new one as well.) If the last tax rate increases from 35% to 39%, an additional $25,054 will be due. When added to the remaining tax liability, this equals $345,361 for an effective rate of 34.5%.

Our millionaire will not see a 4% increase in his tax bill; it will rise by only 2.5%. If instead, this taxpayer's total income was $373.651, it would increase by only 4 cents.

 

[MikeK]

Ah, you poor, sad hand-wringer...

Work harder, get a second job and/or a better degree...

Or take the risks that entrepreneurs have, and you could be one of the millions of millionaires in the US. Almost all of whom earned their money, they didn't inherit it.

But what if I have no such ambition, which is a state of mind I'm sure you cannot conceive of?

The fact is I am quite content with my material lot in life just as it is. And at my age there is nothing more I would care to do than those things I do right now. I have a generous and secure pension, Social Security, Medicare with a union-benefit supplement, a dental and prescription plan, a comfortable bank account and a nice stack of U.S. Savings Bonds. I live in a middle class retirement community and I drive a Cadillac which isn't new but looks and runs like it is.

So I have no cause to envy anyone -- except those young men who are as good-looking and sexually vital as I used to be. My grievance is on behalf of those Americans who are being robbed of the advantages and comforts I enjoy by people who think like you, the Gordon Geckos of America, who are so dissatisfied with their essential persona that they believe material accumulation will compensate for their smallness and insignificance.

So instead of recommending ways for others to become more like you, which is greedy, I recommend that you order a copy of Abraham Maslow's, Hierarchy of Human Needs, and study it, not just read it. Because you desperately need to know the things he can teach you.

 

[georgephillip]

"New Rule: The next rich person who publicly complains about being vilified by the Obama administration must be publicly vilified by the Obama administration. It's so hard for one person to tell another person what constitutes being 'rich', or what tax rate is too much.'

"But I've done some math that indicates that, considering the hole this country is in, if you are earning more than a million dollars a year and are complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then you are by definition a greedy asshole."

Bill Maher...

Is the rich any less enititled to keep the money they earn? If so, Why?

The rich are NOT less entitled to keep the money they earn if they pay an appropriate percentage of their earnings in taxes. As nearly as I can tell society functions collectively through elected legislators to hammer out those details.

I think the correct question is this one. Are the rich paying their fair share of taxes? Warren Buffett caused a stir recently when he answered that one at a Hillary Clinton fund raiser in 2007.

Warren revealed he payed taxes at a rate of about half what his secretary and cleaner paid.

I don't think he's entitled to that.

 

[MikeK]

[...]3. Sociologist Helmut Schoeck’s observation: “Since the end of the Second World War, however, a new ‘ethic’ has come into being, according to which the envious man is perfectly acceptable. Progressively fewer individuals and groups are ashamed of their envy, but instead make out that its existence in their temperaments axiomatically proves the existence of ‘social injustice,’ which must be eliminated for their benefit.” Helmut Schoeck, “Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior,” p. 179
[...]

I agree with Schoeck's observation. But what is most interesting is the condition he circuitously describes in this paragraph is the beast whose name he does not speak -- that of greed.

Schoeck assumes that everyone envies wealth, which to some extent is true. But envy is a rather natural response and it occurs in widely varying degrees and most often at the most superficial level of consciousness. It is natural to envy the benefits of wealth, but to do so does not necessarily imply resentment of the wealthy or a wish to deprive them of their wealth. Such feelings typically arise when wealth seems excessive, or is flaunted or misused, or when its source is known to be immoral or criminal.

So in examining this premise it is important to consider the level of wealth in question and how the wealth was acquired. While I haven't read Schoenck's book I hope that he ventures into such relevant areas of concern, which dwell as much in the field of psychology as in that of sociology.

 

[manu1959]

When you're rich, you lose the right to complain about anything and be taken seriously.

really.....when did that happen........when the rich are paying for your existance they should get to tell you how to live....they are kinda like your boss....

 

[georgephillip]

Well, I'm outta here for my near-minimum wage, part-time job -- but I would just like to add the class war in America is just as real as DEATH and TAXES.

Ask Fucking Pat Tillman the next time you see him.

What has Tillman got to do with taxes? Not a damn thing you stupid fuck!!

Hey, Tex...

Do you really think those tens of thousands of tons of bombs would have fallen on Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia if there hadn't been a profit margin attached to each and every explosion?

Now remind me of 911 THEN tell me why the FBI has charged OBL with the bombings of our African embassies and the USS Cole BUT not with the attacks of 911?

And we should all ponder how two planes completely destroyed three steel framed skyscrapers. (19 terrorists with boxcutters?)

 

[PoliticalChic]

If you are sick of the class warfare, and what you are seeing is actually a very early stage of the coming class warfare, it is only because you or your children have not yet been touched by it. But give it time because the days of the middle class, which you presumably inhabit, are numbered.

What I find interesting but not surprising is a significant percentage of the right-wingers who most vociferously support the right of the super-rich to continue manipulating a compromised system of wealth distribution don't have a pot to piss in. They are are living in mortgaged homes, are heavily in debt to creditors and the thing that motivates these deluded nitwits is the notion that reduced taxes will solve all their money problems. It doesn't occur to them that the tax reduction which will net them an extra $500 a year will net their super-rich counterpart $50 million a year -- and is precisely the reason why the Nation's economy is in the shape it's in today.

The sad reality is that these deluded wretches really have no idea of what wealth is. The closest they have ever been to it is the sight of a private jet passing over their heads. They are their own worst enemies and they don't have the limited intelligence it takes to understand why.

1.Cultural elites and intellectuals, such as Christopher Lasch, state that “economic inequality is intrinsically undesirable…Luxury is morally repugnant, and its incompatibility with democratic ideals, moreover, has been consistently recognized in the traditions that shape our political culture…[A] moral condemnation of great wealth must inform any defense of the free market, and that moral condemnation must be backed up with effective political action.” Christopher Lasch, “The Revolt of the Elites, and the Betrayal of Democracy,” p. 22
Extension of this view changes democracy into socialism: the political ‘one person, one vote,’ becomes the economic mandate of socialism.

a. The desire for equality of income or of wealth is, of course, but one aspect of a more general desire for equality. “The essence of the moral idea of socialism is that human equality is the supreme value in life.” Martin Malia, “A Fatal Logic,” The National Interest, Spring 1993, pp. 80, 87

2. Since one cannot see any objective harm done to the less wealthy by another’s greater wealth, the explanation for the ‘economic equality imperative’ can only be envy. The resentment of luxury in another is evil, in that there is no benefit to depriving others with no gain to ourselves. What is the satisfaction of seeing the better off lessened?

a. President Clinton proposed raising taxes on the rich, even though it didn’t appear that it would increase tax revenues. A sizable portion of the public agreed, even under these circumstances. The motive can only be envy.

3. Sociologist Helmut Schoeck’s observation: “Since the end of the Second World War, however, a new ‘ethic’ has come into being, according to which the envious man is perfectly acceptable. Progressively fewer individuals and groups are ashamed of their envy, but instead make out that its existence in their temperaments axiomatically proves the existence of ‘social injustice,’ which must be eliminated for their benefit.” Helmut Schoeck, “Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior,” p. 179

4. Who are the rich that are so envied, and reviled? Entrepreneurs, small businessmen, corporate executives, doctors, lawyers, just plain Americans…not royalty. The reason to deprive them of rewards with no tangible benefits to oneself: envy.

a. Everyone, it seems, wants to believe that he is just as good as the next guy, and in a democracy, the government adds its authority by the ‘leveling’ process. “ But what his heart whispers to him, and the law proclaims, the society around him incessantly denies: certain people are richer, more powerful than he, others are reputed to be wiser, more intelligent. The contradiction between social reality and the combined wishes of his heart and the law, therefore incites and nourishes a devouring passion in everyone: the passion for equality. It will never cease until social reality is made to conform with his and the law’s wishes.” Pierre Manent, “An Intellectual History of Liberalism,” p. 107-8.

b. The tried and true strategy for coping with the knowledge that others are a cut above, is to find a way to bring down the more fortunate. “And so the leveling process grinds insensately on. The Wall Street Journal recently reprinted a Kurt Vonnegut story, which the paper retitled "It Seemed Like Fiction"…Vonnegut saw the trend and envisioned the day when Americans would achieve perfect equality: persons of superior intelligence required to wear mental handicap radios that emit a sharp noise every twenty seconds to keep them from taking unfair advantage of their brains, persons of superior strength or grace burdened with weights, those of uncommon beauty forced to wear masks.” Hard Truths About the Culture War

Just curious. Why does "your kind" always go on about "cultural elitists"?

What about the "rich elitists"?

You don't really think it's the "cultural elitists" who are buying politicians and lobbying to change laws to give the wealthiest Americans trillion dollar tax breaks, and magical derivatives, and deregulation do you? You know it's the "rich elitists". And do they really need your help? They can buy politicians, you can't.

Now deanie-weanie, you just stop right this minute with your campaign to win (again) the "USMB Dumbest Poster" award!

I can see that you read only the first two words of my post...but this part is pretty important:
" ...only 3 percent inherited their wealth"
10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You - Spending - Rip-offs - SmartMoney.com


Here, let me explain it to you, so we can obviate your other moribund posts: that means that 97% of millionaires are plain ol' hard working American citizens!

(don't take that 'hard working' as a personal insult, deanie)

You see, some 20% of Americans are self-identified 'liberals,' folks like you who drool over the possibility of taking away other folks' hard-earned gains...

While the folks who earned the money can't be the elites, as they are just regular folks, or as libs like to call them, 'targets.'

So, deanie, 'rich elites' is an imaginary term that you concocted to rationalize your envy, whereas 'cultural elites' refers to those who always know how better to spend other folks money.

There, get it now?

 

[PoliticalChic]

This has more to do with closing loopholes than with tax rates, Political Chic. Chief among these was the end of the bait-and-switch alteration of ordinary income into capital gains. The loss of the loophole alone damn near shuttered the tax bar.

Then there was the loss of the ability to deduct passive losses against active income, etc.

In short, we had a lowering of the overall bullshit level in our tax code. I suspect it has risen again, like the tide.

Maddy, I'd be interested in your take on it being "Patriotic for Rich to Pay More" as per my question to Valerie.

Progressive tax rates are a weapon of choice for many a political theorist. The old-timey communists (Marx, Lenin) believed that tax rates should be steeply progressive. Many US tax pundits support progressive rates (at far less steep an incline) as a means of f-a-i-r-l-y distributing both the pain and the cost of government. In that the rich consume far more government services than the poor or middle class, they can fairly be asked to pay a larger share of same. This POV is often called "vertical equity".

I'm not really debating a progressive vs a flat tax in this thread, as no one is proposing a flat tax. What I am debating is the wisdom of shifting $700 Billion in tax burden away from the rich down on to the middle class and poor. However, if pressed, I'd personally support a flat tax because it would bring an end to loopholes and other evils of taxation.

I don't think many of you accept this truism: that $700 Billion has to come from somewhere. If not the rich, then who? YOU.

Deep down you know that this is bogus:
"What I am debating is the wisdom of shifting $700 Billion in tax burden away from the rich down on to the middle class and poor."

The fallacy is that this money is the governments, and it is 'giving it to the rich.'
The money belongs to the one who earned it.

Here, let Chris Matthews tell you:

"CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: I have one small tweak to make to what the president said today -- he should stop saying that giving people tax cuts is giving people money. It`s their money! A tax cut is when the government doesn`t take our money. It`s an important distinction."

Read more: Matthews Scolds Obama: 'Stop Saying Cutting Taxes Is Giving People Money - It's Their Money!' | NewsBusters.org

 

[PoliticalChic]

Progressive tax rates are a weapon of choice for many a political theorist. The old-timey communists (Marx, Lenin) believed that tax rates should be steeply progressive. Many US tax pundits support progressive rates (at far less steep an incline) as a means of f-a-i-r-l-y distributing both the pain and the cost of government. In that the rich consume far more government services than the poor or middle class, they can fairly be asked to pay a larger share of same. This POV is often called "vertical equity".

I'm not really debating a progressive vs a flat tax in this thread, as no one is proposing a flat tax. What I am debating is the wisdom of shifting $700 Billion in tax burden away from the rich down on to the middle class and poor. However, if pressed, I'd personally support a flat tax because it would bring an end to loopholes and other evils of taxation.

I don't think many of you accept this truism: that $700 Billion has to come from somewhere. If not the rich, then who? YOU.

And, of course, you are correct that this has nothing to do with a flat tax...so why bring it up?

And no one is disputing a progressive tax...

Nor is the spin off question whether or not raising taxes on the top earners efficacious in terms of taxes entering the treasury.

The question is what you think is a...let's call it 'fair' level, considering the fact that the top 1% now pays 39%...

"The top 1% of households, which made 19% of pre-tax income, paid 39% of all individual income taxes."
Who pays taxes - and how much? A tax day perennial. - Apr. 15, 2009

Well, no one's effective tax rate currently is 39%, Political Chic, and no one is proposing that it should be. That's the proposed maximum marginal rate which will take effect unless the Bush limited-time-only tax cuts are renewed. The current top rate is somewhere around 36%.

Let's look at a millionaire for a moment.

0 to $16,750.......................rate 10%................$1,675
$16,751 to $68,000..............rate 15%................$7,687
$68,001 to $137,300...........rate 25%................$17,325
$137,301 to $209,250..........rate 28%................$20,146
$209,251 to $373,650...........rate 33%...............$54,252
$373,651 to $1,000,000..........rate 35%............$219,222

Total tax liability: the sum of all the brackets, or $320,307. That's an effective tax rate on the total income of 32%.

For simplicity's sake, let's pretend the expiration of the Bush tax cuts only affects the last bracket. (Apparently, instead it creates a new one as well.) If the last tax rate increases from 35% to 39%, an additional $25,054 will be due. When added to the remaining tax liability, this equals $345,361 for an effective rate of 34.5%.

Our millionaire will not see a 4% increase in his tax bill; it will rise by only 2.5%. If instead, this taxpayer's total income was $373.651, it would increase by only 4 cents.

1. Asked, what, three times, and all you will do is dance around it?

OK, it is stipulated that you either don't have an answer, or you would rather not say how much would be a 'fair' level of taxation of the rich.

Could it be that you see no limit to taxing the rich?

If so, here is some historical context:
2. " A review of tax data for high-income earners in the 1920s shows that as top tax rates were cut, tax revenues and the share of taxes paid by high-income taxpayers soared. Secretary Mellon knew that high tax rates caused the tax base to contract and that lower rates would boost economic growth. In 1924, Mellon noted: "The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business." He received strong support from President Coolidge, who argued that "the wise and correct course to follow in taxation and all other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success but to create conditions under which every one will have a better chance to be successful."

Internal Revenue Service data show that the across-the-board rate cuts of the early 1920s-including large cuts at the top end-resulted in greater tax payments and a larger tax share paid by those with high incomes. As tax rates were cut in the mid-1920s, total tax revenues initially fell. But as the economy responded and began growing quickly, revenues soared as incomes rose. By 1928, revenues had surpassed the 1920 level even though tax rates had been dramatically cut."
1920s Income Tax Cuts Sparked Economic Growth and Raised Federal Revenues | Veronique de Rugy | Cato Institute: Daily Commentary

3. One study of the United States between 1959 and 1991 placed the revenue-maximizing tax rate (the point at which another marginal tax rate increase would decrease tax revenue) between 32.67% and 35.21% Hsing, Y. (1996), "Estimating the Laffer curve and policy implications", Journal of Socio-Economics 25 (3): 395–401, doi:10.1016/S1053-5357(96)90013-X, ScienceDirect - Journal of Socio-Economics : Estimating the laffer curve and policy implications*1

 

[PoliticalChic]

Ah, you poor, sad hand-wringer...

Work harder, get a second job and/or a better degree...

Or take the risks that entrepreneurs have, and you could be one of the millions of millionaires in the US. Almost all of whom earned their money, they didn't inherit it.

But what if I have no such ambition, which is a state of mind I'm sure you cannot conceive of?

The fact is I am quite content with my material lot in life just as it is. And at my age there is nothing more I would care to do than those things I do right now. I have a generous and secure pension, Social Security, Medicare with a union-benefit supplement, a dental and prescription plan, a comfortable bank account and a nice stack of U.S. Savings Bonds. I live in a middle class retirement community and I drive a Cadillac which isn't new but looks and runs like it is.

So I have no cause to envy anyone -- except those young men who are as good-looking and sexually vital as I used to be. My grievance is on behalf of those Americans who are being robbed of the advantages and comforts I enjoy by people who think like you, the Gordon Geckos of America, who are so dissatisfied with their essential persona that they believe material accumulation will compensate for their smallness and insignificance.

So instead of recommending ways for others to become more like you, which is greedy, I recommend that you order a copy of Abraham Maslow's, Hierarchy of Human Needs, and study it, not just read it. Because you desperately need to know the things he can teach you.

This is one of the weakest attempts at rebuttal in a long time.

1. "My grievance is on behalf of those Americans who are being robbed of the advantages and comforts I enjoy by people who think like you, the Gordon Geckos of America, who are so dissatisfied with their essential persona that they believe material accumulation will compensate for their smallness and insignificance."

Not only are you pounding youself on the back as the hero and champion of the long suffering folks who look to you as their savior.... I've brought a tear to my own eye!

...but there is no such group, except in your fever-fueled imagination.

How about a bumper sticker for the Caddy, you know, like "workers of the world unite!" Oops, that one is taken...

2. "Marxism rested on the assumption that the condition of the working classes would grow ever worse under capitalism, that there would be but two classes: one small and rich, the other vast and increasingly impoverished, and revolution would be the anodyne that would result in the “common good.” But by the early 20th century, it was clear that this assumption was completely wrong! Under capitalism, the standard of living of all was improving: prices falling, incomes rising, health and sanitation improving, lengthening of life spans, diets becoming more varied, the new jobs created in industry paid more than most could make in agriculture, housing improved, and middle class industrialists and business owners displaced nobility and gentry as heroes."
https://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2007&month=05

3. "So I have no cause to envy anyone -- except those young men who are as good-looking and sexually vital as I used to be."
This is getting maudlin...
C'mon...chin up, Champ.

4. Since "..I have no cause to envy anyone ..." then, please explain why you desire confiscation of profits, an act which have not been shown to benfit either the treasury, or any group?
If you have other documentation, please provide same, or I'll go with the Occam's Razor-envy idea.
[and a little scholarship on your part would certainly add to the evening]


5. See, here is where you really fall apart: "ways for others to become more like you, which is greedy,..."
Protocol, I believe, requires that you show that I am, in fact, as you describe me...greedy.
Actually, as I am the one asking that folks retain their honestly-earned profits, it seems that you are, to coin a phrase, hoist by your own petard.

And, interestingly, your post seems to conform to several aspects of the Liberal Playbook:
1. Always be the first to accuse, and make certain to accuse the opponent of exactly what you are doing.
a. Every issue must by stated as one of Race-Gender-or Class. There is nothing else that matters.
[this would be the 'class' thing]

3. Always assure the opposition that you know what is better for the proletariat, even if there are polls that claim the opposite. [like, you're looking out for them]
a. Assure the compliant that you are only looking out for their best interests, as in “look, it’s not about me…”
b. Claim the public has been ‘brainwashed,’ and politicians bought.


6. And, see if this shoe fits:
Since Liberals see their view as a higher calling that that of Conservatives, they mistakenly believe that it is entirely appropriate for then to use, not logic, facts, nor accepted debating techniques, but ad hominem attacks on the physical appearance, personal history, or imaginary mental defects. Notice how the Liberal replaces intellect with emotion. This is, no doubt, based on a medieval concept of recognizing witches and demons. In fact, Liberals attempt to deal with opponents in similar fashion: recall Clarence Thomas’ “High Tech Lynching.”


Think Maddy will give me a 'thanks' for this one?

 

[georgephillip]

One of the richest people on the planet, Warren Buffett, isn't likely to have to worry about finding any non-existent jobs or working at wages that guarantee long term poverty, BUT he still doesn't want you to be angry.

"It is counter productive."

But I wonder how angry Warren would be if he lost all of his wealth, all of his medical coverage, all of his mansions. I am sure he wouldn’t be happy.

"You, on the other hand, should be different.

"You should understand that facing poverty and the loss of your middle class status is something that is part of the capitalist system.

"While Buffet and the others benefit from your taxpayer funded bail outs and are able to prosper in the midst of your suffering, don’t get angry.

It is just the way things should be."

In the land of the fee and the home of the slave.

Super Rich Warren...

 

[Madeline]

Maddy, I'd be interested in your take on it being "Patriotic for Rich to Pay More" as per my question to Valerie.

Progressive tax rates are a weapon of choice for many a political theorist. The old-timey communists (Marx, Lenin) believed that tax rates should be steeply progressive. Many US tax pundits support progressive rates (at far less steep an incline) as a means of f-a-i-r-l-y distributing both the pain and the cost of government. In that the rich consume far more government services than the poor or middle class, they can fairly be asked to pay a larger share of same. This POV is often called "vertical equity".

I'm not really debating a progressive vs a flat tax in this thread, as no one is proposing a flat tax. What I am debating is the wisdom of shifting $700 Billion in tax burden away from the rich down on to the middle class and poor. However, if pressed, I'd personally support a flat tax because it would bring an end to loopholes and other evils of taxation.

I don't think many of you accept this truism: that $700 Billion has to come from somewhere. If not the rich, then who? YOU.

Deep down you know that this is bogus:
"What I am debating is the wisdom of shifting $700 Billion in tax burden away from the rich down on to the middle class and poor."

The fallacy is that this money is the governments, and it is 'giving it to the rich.'
The money belongs to the one who earned it.

Here, let Chris Matthews tell you:

"CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: I have one small tweak to make to what the president said today -- he should stop saying that giving people tax cuts is giving people money. It`s their money! A tax cut is when the government doesn`t take our money. It`s an important distinction."

Read more: Matthews Scolds Obama: 'Stop Saying Cutting Taxes Is Giving People Money - It's Their Money!' | NewsBusters.org

May I use your property, your utilities, your labor to hawk my goods and then claim 100 cents on a dollar of gross receipts was "earned by me"? No?

Then don't tell me any wealthy person has "earned 100%" of his income, either.

 

[Madeline]

And, of course, you are correct that this has nothing to do with a flat tax...so why bring it up?

And no one is disputing a progressive tax...

Nor is the spin off question whether or not raising taxes on the top earners efficacious in terms of taxes entering the treasury.

The question is what you think is a...let's call it 'fair' level, considering the fact that the top 1% now pays 39%...

"The top 1% of households, which made 19% of pre-tax income, paid 39% of all individual income taxes."
Who pays taxes - and how much? A tax day perennial. - Apr. 15, 2009

Well, no one's effective tax rate currently is 39%, Political Chic, and no one is proposing that it should be. That's the proposed maximum marginal rate which will take effect unless the Bush limited-time-only tax cuts are renewed. The current top rate is somewhere around 36%.

Let's look at a millionaire for a moment.

0 to $16,750.......................rate 10%................$1,675
$16,751 to $68,000..............rate 15%................$7,687
$68,001 to $137,300...........rate 25%................$17,325
$137,301 to $209,250..........rate 28%................$20,146
$209,251 to $373,650...........rate 33%...............$54,252
$373,651 to $1,000,000..........rate 35%............$219,222

Total tax liability: the sum of all the brackets, or $320,307. That's an effective tax rate on the total income of 32%.

For simplicity's sake, let's pretend the expiration of the Bush tax cuts only affects the last bracket. (Apparently, instead it creates a new one as well.) If the last tax rate increases from 35% to 39%, an additional $25,054 will be due. When added to the remaining tax liability, this equals $345,361 for an effective rate of 34.5%.

Our millionaire will not see a 4% increase in his tax bill; it will rise by only 2.5%. If instead, this taxpayer's total income was $373.651, it would increase by only 4 cents.

1. Asked, what, three times, and all you will do is dance around it?

OK, it is stipulated that you either don't have an answer, or you would rather not say how much would be a 'fair' level of taxation of the rich.

Could it be that you see no limit to taxing the rich?

If so, here is some historical context:
2. " A review of tax data for high-income earners in the 1920s shows that as top tax rates were cut, tax revenues and the share of taxes paid by high-income taxpayers soared. Secretary Mellon knew that high tax rates caused the tax base to contract and that lower rates would boost economic growth. In 1924, Mellon noted: "The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business." He received strong support from President Coolidge, who argued that "the wise and correct course to follow in taxation and all other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success but to create conditions under which every one will have a better chance to be successful."

Internal Revenue Service data show that the across-the-board rate cuts of the early 1920s-including large cuts at the top end-resulted in greater tax payments and a larger tax share paid by those with high incomes. As tax rates were cut in the mid-1920s, total tax revenues initially fell. But as the economy responded and began growing quickly, revenues soared as incomes rose. By 1928, revenues had surpassed the 1920 level even though tax rates had been dramatically cut."
1920s Income Tax Cuts Sparked Economic Growth and Raised Federal Revenues | Veronique de Rugy | Cato Institute: Daily Commentary

Voluntary compliance with the tax laws also grew during this period, as did population and personal income. It's less than honest to say that tax revenues grew because tax rates were cut.

3. One study of the United States between 1959 and 1991 placed the revenue-maximizing tax rate (the point at which another marginal tax rate increase would decrease tax revenue) between 32.67% and 35.21% Hsing, Y. (1996), "Estimating the Laffer curve and policy implications", Journal of Socio-Economics 25 (3): 395–401, doi:10.1016/S1053-5357(96)90013-X, ScienceDirect - Journal of Socio-Economics : Estimating the laffer curve and policy implications*1

This is probably true. I would agree the US must face up to its fiscal crisis because it has likely nearly reached the end of its borrowing capacity and nearly the end of its taxing capacity. But no one can apply the Laffer Curve with such precision as to say that the marginal rate should never exceed 35.21%. The only alternative to raising the top marginal rate is to raise the rate on lower brackets -- in other words, to shift the tax burden down onto the poor and middle class.

You are a pistol to debate with, PoliticalChic.

 

[Liability]

Progressive tax rates are a weapon of choice for many a political theorist. The old-timey communists (Marx, Lenin) believed that tax rates should be steeply progressive. Many US tax pundits support progressive rates (at far less steep an incline) as a means of f-a-i-r-l-y distributing both the pain and the cost of government. In that the rich consume far more government services than the poor or middle class, they can fairly be asked to pay a larger share of same. This POV is often called "vertical equity".

I'm not really debating a progressive vs a flat tax in this thread, as no one is proposing a flat tax. What I am debating is the wisdom of shifting $700 Billion in tax burden away from the rich down on to the middle class and poor. However, if pressed, I'd personally support a flat tax because it would bring an end to loopholes and other evils of taxation.

I don't think many of you accept this truism: that $700 Billion has to come from somewhere. If not the rich, then who? YOU.

Deep down you know that this is bogus:
"What I am debating is the wisdom of shifting $700 Billion in tax burden away from the rich down on to the middle class and poor."

The fallacy is that this money is the governments, and it is 'giving it to the rich.'
The money belongs to the one who earned it.

Here, let Chris Matthews tell you:

"CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: I have one small tweak to make to what the president said today -- he should stop saying that giving people tax cuts is giving people money. It`s their money! A tax cut is when the government doesn`t take our money. It`s an important distinction."

Read more: Matthews Scolds Obama: 'Stop Saying Cutting Taxes Is Giving People Money - It's Their Money!' | NewsBusters.org

May I use your property, your utilities, your labor to hawk my goods and then claim 100 cents on a dollar of gross receipts was "earned by me"? No?

Then don't tell me any wealthy person has "earned 100%" of his income, either.

It was 100% earned by the wealthy person.

The wealthy person uses his own factory, hires his own workers, purchases his own raw materials, advertises using his own money, markets with his own mail, phone and internet and sales-force, distributes with his own trucks (or pays to lease those of others) and pays for the gas, bridges and tolls along the way, too.

If you are suggesting that there may be some undesired by-products produced (like gas emissions or some water pollution, etc) along the way, I don't disagree. But that's true of every manufacturer and just about every person, too. IF the government needs to charge the manufacturer a bit in the form of a tax to cover the governmental costs of regulation and clean-up, that's fine. That can be charged as a COST of production, too, and the manufacturer is still the ONLY one who is paying for the creation of his wealth.

If his workers don't like their wages, they can work elsewhere or collectively bargain for a better wage and "benefits" (and let's be blunt, "benefits" from the perspective of the employer is just part of the wages he pays, short and long term). But they are still earning their income because the manufacturer is the one creating the product and selling it -- earning all of it on his own. (And if it isn't one individual entrepreneur -- some Daddy Warbucks -- who is the sole owner, but is instead a large number of share-holders, that doesn't change the analysis at all).

So, getting back to the nub of it: OF COURSE the wealthy person (the wealth creator) has earned the money. Every freaking dime of it.

 

[FireGod]

Deep down you know that this is bogus:
"What I am debating is the wisdom of shifting $700 Billion in tax burden away from the rich down on to the middle class and poor."

The fallacy is that this money is the governments, and it is 'giving it to the rich.'
The money belongs to the one who earned it.

Here, let Chris Matthews tell you:

"CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: I have one small tweak to make to what the president said today -- he should stop saying that giving people tax cuts is giving people money. It`s their money! A tax cut is when the government doesn`t take our money. It`s an important distinction."

Read more: Matthews Scolds Obama: 'Stop Saying Cutting Taxes Is Giving People Money - It's Their Money!' | NewsBusters.org

May I use your property, your utilities, your labor to hawk my goods and then claim 100 cents on a dollar of gross receipts was "earned by me"? No?

Then don't tell me any wealthy person has "earned 100%" of his income, either.

It was 100% earned by the wealthy person.

The wealthy person uses his own factory, hires his own workers, purchases his own raw materials, advertises using his own money, markets with his own mail, phone and internet and sales-force, distributes with his own trucks (or pays to lease those of others) and pays for the gas, bridges and tolls along the way, too.

If you are suggesting that there may be some undesired by-products produced (like gas emissions or some water pollution, etc) along the way, I don't disagree. But that's true of every manufacturer and just about every person, too. IF the government needs to charge the manufacturer a bit in the form of a tax to cover the governmental costs of regulation and clean-up, that's fine. That can be charged as a COST of production, too, and the manufacturer is still the ONLY one who is paying for the creation of his wealth.

If his workers don't like their wages, they can work elsewhere or collectively bargain for a better wage and "benefits" (and let's be blunt, "benefits" from the perspective of the employer is just part of the wages he pays, short and long term). But they are still earning their income because the manufacturer is the one creating the product and selling it -- earning all of it on his own. (And if it isn't one individual entrepreneur -- some Daddy Warbucks -- who is the sole owner, but is instead a large number of share-holders, that doesn't change the analysis at all).

So, getting back to the nub of it: OF COURSE the wealthy person (the wealth creator) has earned the money. Every freaking dime of it.

So would you agree with post 84? After all it is the best way to motivate the rich to continue to provide jobs and get the US economy back on it feet.

 

[KissMy]

Bill Maher was forced to admit on his own show that he is not a Libertarian. He is a Marxist who believes rules should be imposed on the citizens by Elitist like him. That is the prims behind his New Rules Segment that hos drones applaud every show.

Only brainwashed idiots believe anything that asshole had to say.

 

[PoliticalChic]

[...]3. Sociologist Helmut Schoeck’s observation: “Since the end of the Second World War, however, a new ‘ethic’ has come into being, according to which the envious man is perfectly acceptable. Progressively fewer individuals and groups are ashamed of their envy, but instead make out that its existence in their temperaments axiomatically proves the existence of ‘social injustice,’ which must be eliminated for their benefit.” Helmut Schoeck, “Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior,” p. 179
[...]

I agree with Schoeck's observation. But what is most interesting is the condition he circuitously describes in this paragraph is the beast whose name he does not speak -- that of greed.

Schoeck assumes that everyone envies wealth, which to some extent is true. But envy is a rather natural response and it occurs in widely varying degrees and most often at the most superficial level of consciousness. It is natural to envy the benefits of wealth, but to do so does not necessarily imply resentment of the wealthy or a wish to deprive them of their wealth. Such feelings typically arise when wealth seems excessive, or is flaunted or misused, or when its source is known to be immoral or criminal.

So in examining this premise it is important to consider the level of wealth in question and how the wealth was acquired. While I haven't read Schoenck's book I hope that he ventures into such relevant areas of concern, which dwell as much in the field of psychology as in that of sociology.

Interesting post.

I'm going to suggest that the discussion could go beyond economics, into the direction that you indicate, "...as much in the field of psychology as in that of sociology."

The envy entered into the rhelm of greed when the work ethic dissolved...

The following from Malanga's "What Happened to the Work Ethic?"

"1. But the dissolution of the belief in the work ethic began with the cultural protests of the 1960s, which questioned and discarded many traditional American virtues. The roots of this breakup lay in what Daniel Bell described in The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism as the rejection of traditional bourgeois qualities by late-nineteenth-century European artists and intellectuals who sought “to substitute for religion or morality an aesthetic justification of life.”

a. By the 1960s, that modernist tendency had evolved into a credo of self-fulfillment in which “nothing is forbidden, all is to be explored,” Bell wrote. Out went the Protestant ethic’s prudence, thrift, temperance, self-discipline, and deferral of gratification. As the editor of the 1973 American Work Ethic noted, “affluence, hedonism and radicalism” became the new axiom. The time-honored definition of virtue abandoned the notion of rewarding traditional bourgeois virtues like completing an education or marrying to substitute pursuit of cash, recycling trash, saving endangered species, showing tolerance and sensitivity.

b. Attitudes toward businessmen changed, too. While film and television had formerly offered a balanced portrait of work and employers, notes film critic Michael Medved in Hollywood vs. America, from the mid-1960s onward, movies and TV portrayed business executives almost exclusively as villains or buffoons.

c. When schools threw out the bourgeois values that had helped to sustain Weber’s “rational tempering” of the impulse to accumulate wealth, they removed the rationality in “rational self-interest,” or, as Tocqueville put it, “self-interest rightly understood.”

d. The new “every child is special” curriculum prompted a sharp uptick in students’ self-absorption, according to psychologists Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell in The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. What resulted was a series of increasingly self-centered generations of young people displaying progressively more narcissistic personality traits, including a growing obsession with “material wealth and physical appearance,” the authors observe.

2. Current discussion about how to fix capitalism seems limited to those who believe that more government will fix the problem and those who think that free markets will fix themselves. Few have asked whether we can recapture the civic virtues that nourished our commerce for 300 years."
Whatever Happened to the Work Ethic? by Steven Malanga, City Journal Summer 2009
(emphasis mine)

I believe you would find the article of interest.

 

[editec]

Truth is, there are only two things that the United States is not running out of: Rich people and bullshit.

Hard to argue with that.

 

[editec]

What happened to the work ethic?

What a load of Randian horseshit

Americans were working MORE HOURS than any people in the industrialized world.

We also had the most highly educated workforce in human history.

Stop believing this holier than thou Randian nonsense and look at the facts.

America is in trouble because its LEADERS have put it in jeopardy.

Not because the American working classes have screwed up.

 

[Liability]

May I use your property, your utilities, your labor to hawk my goods and then claim 100 cents on a dollar of gross receipts was "earned by me"? No?

Then don't tell me any wealthy person has "earned 100%" of his income, either.

It was 100% earned by the wealthy person.

The wealthy person uses his own factory, hires his own workers, purchases his own raw materials, advertises using his own money, markets with his own mail, phone and internet and sales-force, distributes with his own trucks (or pays to lease those of others) and pays for the gas, bridges and tolls along the way, too.

If you are suggesting that there may be some undesired by-products produced (like gas emissions or some water pollution, etc) along the way, I don't disagree. But that's true of every manufacturer and just about every person, too. IF the government needs to charge the manufacturer a bit in the form of a tax to cover the governmental costs of regulation and clean-up, that's fine. That can be charged as a COST of production, too, and the manufacturer is still the ONLY one who is paying for the creation of his wealth.

If his workers don't like their wages, they can work elsewhere or collectively bargain for a better wage and "benefits" (and let's be blunt, "benefits" from the perspective of the employer is just part of the wages he pays, short and long term). But they are still earning their income because the manufacturer is the one creating the product and selling it -- earning all of it on his own. (And if it isn't one individual entrepreneur -- some Daddy Warbucks -- who is the sole owner, but is instead a large number of share-holders, that doesn't change the analysis at all).

So, getting back to the nub of it: OF COURSE the wealthy person (the wealth creator) has earned the money. Every freaking dime of it.

So would you agree with post 84? After all it is the best way to motivate the rich to continue to provide jobs and get the US economy back on it feet.

Two replies: First, your post 84 could have been LINKED for ease of reference.

Second: your post 84 is rather unclear.

However, I will say this much. EVERY person should be "invested" in the Republic and its economy (economies). So, a national sales tax on consumption seems most fair to me. IF I am a rich person (or, to the liberals, one of the evil, greedy "class") then the more I consume, the more I pay. Those who have less, consume less and thus "pay" less in terms of taxation. So there you have it. The "rich" pay more because they consume more and the less affluent pay far less because they consume far less. What could be more fair?

A national sales tax, however it is ultimately structured, also becomes easy to quantify for such things as analyzing the cost of production.