Why the poor should be taxed more heavily.

[pal_of_poor]

" I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."
-- Benjamin Franklin, November 1776

Just maybe, if the poor were taxed more heavily than the wealthy, it would encourage them to better their position in life so that they could avoid paying so much in taxes.
The government frequently taxes things to discourage it. Things like tobacco and alcohol come to mind. The cap and trade will be a tax to discourage certain types of energy usage the government doesn't want.

Because, of course, people choose to be poor, right? We all know people get jobs, and their boss says, hey, I'll pay you fifteen dollars an hour, then those damn poor folks say, No, NO, please, don't pay me so much. I want to be poor, so how about minimum wage, yea, that's all I want. I want to be poor, it's my choice.

I so get a kick out of people who think poor people choose to be poor. I don't know how one develops that kind of delusion, but I've always suspected that it has something to do with making themselves and their conscience easier to cope with.

I might add that taxing the poor would in this bad economy, be a final straw, because unlike the tax cuts for the richest who've already accumulated more wealth in the last 30 years than since just before the last Great Depression, the poor spend every bit of their income after taxes. If you slap a tax on soft drinks, then you take money right from the pockets of people who actually spend it, thus helping the economy.

If there were 300 million jobs out there that had CEO pay, then your point may be valid. But no matter how well trained, if we have jobs out there that pay so little as to create a huge segment of poverty (13.2 percent), and one-sixth of the country with no insurance, then we will always have poor people, because we've designed the system that way, because the rich bribe the congress and president, though republicans tend to not need to be bribed.

 

[Bill O'Olberman]

Increasing the tax burden on the poor would be a failed policy since they really dont have any money to start with. Also, the poor spend a larger percentage of their income on necessities such as food, clothes, and on their rent or mortgage than rich people do. So the marginal utility of that extra $1000 you would take away from a poor person is much greater than it would be to anyone in the top 1 percent of America. Its substantively unjust to tax poor people at a higher level than rich people especially since they have to already deal with regressive taxes such as the sales tax, gas tax, etc. And face it, the people in the top 1 percent need the people in the bottom 25 percent of Americans to provide them cheap and unskilled labor.

That said, I favor the flat tax as advocated by rightwinger in this thread... but the rich will never have it.

 

[Contumacious]

Increasing the tax burden on the poor would be a failed policy since they really dont have any money to start with..

But the rich should NOT be penalized by forcing them to support the poor.

The welfare state kills motivation and encourages parasitism.


.

 

[Bill O'Olberman]

Increasing the tax burden on the poor would be a failed policy since they really dont have any money to start with..

But the rich should NOT be penalized by forcing them to support the poor.

The welfare state kills motivation and encourages parasitism.

.

Well, I am not advocating the welfare state, I am just arguing against a regressive income tax structure. Of course rich benefit from a relatively happy healthy and able poor working class who provide them their cheap unskilled labor. So the welfare state may not be totally undesirable to super rich. But its understandable why the average Joe who works 50+ hours a week for his $50000 a year job detests the welfare state.

 

[Contumacious]

Increasing the tax burden on the poor would be a failed policy since they really dont have any money to start with..

But the rich should NOT be penalized by forcing them to support the poor.

The welfare state kills motivation and encourages parasitism.

.

Well, I am not advocating the welfare state, I am just arguing against a regressive income tax structure. Of course rich benefit from a relatively happy healthy and able poor working class who provide them their cheap unskilled labor. So the welfare state may not be totally undesirable to super rich. But its understandable why the average Joe who works 50+ hours a week for his $50000 a year job detests the welfare state.

I concur.

Voters should be required to pay a stiff poll tax.


.

 

[The Rabbi]

Because, of course, people choose to be poor, right? We all know people get jobs, and their boss says, hey, I'll pay you fifteen dollars an hour, then those damn poor folks say, No, NO, please, don't pay me so much. I want to be poor, so how about minimum wage, yea, that's all I want. I want to be poor, it's my choice.

People choose to work as much as they want. If you want to see people working, go look for a recent immigrant from e.g. Jamaica or Thailand or something. I knew one guy who had a day job, a night job and a weekend job. It was tough but doable and he made a decent living all told.
Of course with the new minimum wage it is harder to find unskilled jobs like that. Thank the Dems yet again.

 

[Againsheila]

" I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."
-- Benjamin Franklin, November 1776

Just maybe, if the poor were taxed more heavily than the wealthy, it would encourage them to better their position in life so that they could avoid paying so much in taxes.
The government frequently taxes things to discourage it. Things like tobacco and alcohol come to mind. The cap and trade will be a tax to discourage certain types of energy usage the government doesn't want.

You have got to be joking....

I give out lunches to the homeless every Monday.....they don't have anything to tax. What, you are gonna tax the tent they sleep in in the woods? The storage shelter they've taken refuge in? The lunches and dinners given out by the various churches?

The poor don't have anything to tax...the top 10% of this country owns more wealth than the bottom 90% combined, they should be paying more than 90% of the taxes.

 

[Againsheila]

Because, of course, people choose to be poor, right? We all know people get jobs, and their boss says, hey, I'll pay you fifteen dollars an hour, then those damn poor folks say, No, NO, please, don't pay me so much. I want to be poor, so how about minimum wage, yea, that's all I want. I want to be poor, it's my choice.

People choose to work as much as they want. If you want to see people working, go look for a recent immigrant from e.g. Jamaica or Thailand or something. I knew one guy who had a day job, a night job and a weekend job. It was tough but doable and he made a decent living all told.
Of course with the new minimum wage it is harder to find unskilled jobs like that. Thank the Dems yet again.

Bulcrap....I know many people, Americans, who've been put out of work, myself included. My job went to India. I know lot's of Americans in construction who've been laid off. When I graduated from highschool construction was a well paid job, now, over 30 years later, they are making about the same per hour as they did when I graduated from highschool, do you know anything else that's remained the same? Do you know why the pay has remained the same? Because of the immigrants, both legal and illegal, who've come into our country and taken our jobs, and reduced our wages, just like the wealthy want. American's limited their growth which, according to capitalism, would have raised the wages on the poor, but to counter that, our government let in more and more immigrants, both legal and illegal. Americans have less than replacement value children, immigrants on the other hand have an average of 7.5 children per family, and here's a real interesting statistic, Mexicans in OUR country have more children than their counterparts in the OWN country.

Our country is dead, people just haven't realized it yet, and it was killed by people like you who cry "tax the poor"....."people work as much as they want", etc.

 

[Bill O'Olberman]

But the rich should NOT be penalized by forcing them to support the poor.

The welfare state kills motivation and encourages parasitism.

.

Well, I am not advocating the welfare state, I am just arguing against a regressive income tax structure. Of course rich benefit from a relatively happy healthy and able poor working class who provide them their cheap unskilled labor. So the welfare state may not be totally undesirable to super rich. But its understandable why the average Joe who works 50+ hours a week for his $50000 a year job detests the welfare state.

I concur.

Voters should be required to pay a stiff poll tax.

.

Well if thats how feel you gotta get the 24th Amendment repealed... And of course I might just be delusional but when it comes to a persons ability to participate in their political system I dont believe that wealth should be an obstacle especially for something as basic as voting. And a poll tax challenges such a notion and really only allows "elitists," who Republicans have railed against, to become even more so the main participants in the political process.

 

[The Rabbi]

Because, of course, people choose to be poor, right? We all know people get jobs, and their boss says, hey, I'll pay you fifteen dollars an hour, then those damn poor folks say, No, NO, please, don't pay me so much. I want to be poor, so how about minimum wage, yea, that's all I want. I want to be poor, it's my choice.

People choose to work as much as they want. If you want to see people working, go look for a recent immigrant from e.g. Jamaica or Thailand or something. I knew one guy who had a day job, a night job and a weekend job. It was tough but doable and he made a decent living all told.
Of course with the new minimum wage it is harder to find unskilled jobs like that. Thank the Dems yet again.

Bulcrap....I know many people, Americans, who've been put out of work, myself included. My job went to India. I know lot's of Americans in construction who've been laid off. When I graduated from highschool construction was a well paid job, now, over 30 years later, they are making about the same per hour as they did when I graduated from highschool, do you know anything else that's remained the same? Do you know why the pay has remained the same? Because of the immigrants, both legal and illegal, who've come into our country and taken our jobs, and reduced our wages, just like the wealthy want. American's limited their growth which, according to capitalism, would have raised the wages on the poor, but to counter that, our government let in more and more immigrants, both legal and illegal. Americans have less than replacement value children, immigrants on the other hand have an average of 7.5 children per family, and here's a real interesting statistic, Mexicans in OUR country have more children than their counterparts in the OWN country.

Our country is dead, people just haven't realized it yet, and it was killed by people like you who cry "tax the poor"....."people work as much as they want", etc.

If your job could be outsourced to an Indian or an illiterate Mexican then you have bigger problems than unemployment.
There is competition in this world. Get over it. Lower wages benefit everybody,not just the wealthy. Quit playing Class Envy, it doesn't work.

 

[Mr Natural]

As long as we're taxing the poor, let's bring back debtor prisons for members of the middle class who can't pay their bills.

That'll teach 'em!

 

[pal_of_poor]

Question is, what are you going to tax from the poor? They're poor, they have nothing to tax.

Unless of course you wish to tax poor people, which will drive them to being unable to afford simple necessities if they cannot already.

That would be like saying lets tax the rich so they will be encouraged to earn more.

(I do hope you're not serious.)

40% of the people in this country are NOT poor--but they fall under the bar to pay federal income taxes. Either with lots of Dependant right-offs--deductions, etc.

They basically get a free ride on the backs of others who acted more responsibly--& earn more.

These are the EXACT same people that continually want to tax--tax--tax the 1% of this country--(the wealthy) who already pay 65% of the entire tax base in this country.

The majority of these people can contribute also--& I don't care if it's $100 to $1000 per year--they need to be "patriotic" (as Joe Biden stated) & get on board.

They don't appear to mind soaring deficits to get everything they want--so they can pay too.

The top one percent hold the same wee bottom 95 percent--so, why weep for the super-wealthy? Why do their bidding? Besides, when you continue giving breaks to the wealthy, in a debt-ridden situation, then don't you see they'll replace those taxes by putting them on you, with soft drinks, an even higher gas tax, higher sales taxes, state taxes, more toll roads, more fees, more utility taxes, and more tickets, or fines, which are just camouflaged taxes.

 

[The Rabbi]

As long as we're taxing the poor, let's bring back debtor prisons for members of the middle class who can't pay their bills.

That'll teach 'em!

Actually indentured servitude makes more sense. The way it is now you can just borrow a bunch of money, blow it on clothes and vacations, and then bankrupt and screw over the creditors. Then walk away scot free.

 

[bodecea]

As long as we're taxing the poor, let's bring back debtor prisons for members of the middle class who can't pay their bills.

That'll teach 'em!

Actually indentured servitude makes more sense. The way it is now you can just borrow a bunch of money, blow it on clothes and vacations, and then bankrupt and screw over the creditors. Then walk away scot free.

Scot free? Really?

 

[bodecea]

Even a Walmart in a lower end area, charges MORE than a walmart in a better neighborhood.

My sister is a teacher in a lower end white neighborhood area of a florida town, and she lives in a nicer area. The walmart near her school charges more, sometimes as much as 25% more for the precise same merchandise than the store her home neighborhood utilizes....IT INFURIATES her...because the one near her school is on the way home and the one servicing her town is a little past her town, so she would prefer to buy from the walmart on the way home from her school for convenience...but she just REFUSES to pay their higher price that they charge the lower income people in that neighborhood.

Truthfully, when i was there visiting and she told me that, I just could not believe it...but during the 3 weeks visiting, I did the 2 walmarts myself and low and behold, she was CORRECT.

I just can't understand why they need to charge their customers more for the precise same things?

Care

They do because they can, and they can because of a "captive audience."

People who are poor have a much harder time getting around to comparison shop!


Isolated areas have some of the same issues.

Example; Fort Bragg, California, where the Safeway there had the highest profit margin of any Safeway, in a town where so many are so very poor, and at $3. plus a gallon for gas, traveling a nearly 200 mile round trip to have access is just not a viable solution.

Captive audiernce, they can take advantage, so they do.

Ever been just outside any military base. Now THERE are business's that thrive off of ripping off young military members.

 

[The Rabbi]

As long as we're taxing the poor, let's bring back debtor prisons for members of the middle class who can't pay their bills.

That'll teach 'em!

Actually indentured servitude makes more sense. The way it is now you can just borrow a bunch of money, blow it on clothes and vacations, and then bankrupt and screw over the creditors. Then walk away scot free.

Scot free? Really?

Honest. And within months they are getting credit card offers and within years mortgage offers. And 8 years later they can go back and do it all over again.

 

[Againsheila]

People choose to work as much as they want. If you want to see people working, go look for a recent immigrant from e.g. Jamaica or Thailand or something. I knew one guy who had a day job, a night job and a weekend job. It was tough but doable and he made a decent living all told.
Of course with the new minimum wage it is harder to find unskilled jobs like that. Thank the Dems yet again.

Bulcrap....I know many people, Americans, who've been put out of work, myself included. My job went to India. I know lot's of Americans in construction who've been laid off. When I graduated from highschool construction was a well paid job, now, over 30 years later, they are making about the same per hour as they did when I graduated from highschool, do you know anything else that's remained the same? Do you know why the pay has remained the same? Because of the immigrants, both legal and illegal, who've come into our country and taken our jobs, and reduced our wages, just like the wealthy want. American's limited their growth which, according to capitalism, would have raised the wages on the poor, but to counter that, our government let in more and more immigrants, both legal and illegal. Americans have less than replacement value children, immigrants on the other hand have an average of 7.5 children per family, and here's a real interesting statistic, Mexicans in OUR country have more children than their counterparts in the OWN country.

Our country is dead, people just haven't realized it yet, and it was killed by people like you who cry "tax the poor"....."people work as much as they want", etc.

If your job could be outsourced to an Indian or an illiterate Mexican then you have bigger problems than unemployment.
There is competition in this world. Get over it. Lower wages benefit everybody,not just the wealthy. Quit playing Class Envy, it doesn't work.

Yeah, right...I offered to go to India to keep my job, even at the $4.00 an hour they pay there. Here I made less than $9.00 an hour. Guess what the answer was? No, those jobs are for THEIR citizens. Ours is the only country in the world that doesn't protect the jobs of our citizens.

Lower wages ONLY benefit the wealthy. And when it costs a minimum of $700 a month to rent an apartment, people shouldn't have to be competing for wages with people who live in a place where it cost less than $30 a month for an apartment.

This isn't class envy, this is class warfare, and as in the gilded age, it was started, once again, by the wealthy. No country can long survive with the majority of it's wealth in the hands of a few.

 

[rayboyusmc]

Just maybe, if the poor were taxed more heavily than the wealthy, it would encourage them to better their position in life so that they could avoid paying so much in taxes.

Yup, all the poor are just lazy assholes who won't work harder to get ahead.

 

[Sinatra]

I think a fair tax is the only option. I was quite surprised to learn that a whopping 40% of this country fall under the bar & pay no federal income tax what-so-ever. And that less than 1% of the population in this country pay 65% of the entire tax base. Yet--these same people (under the bar--want the rich to pay more???)

More than likely Obama voters--who continually want their way paid for by others.

A little dose of contributing to this country--may wake them up to reality--& get them to become more productive citizens themselves.

Not only do they fall under the bar - they receive tax refunds for money that was never paid in! The upper income brackets already subsidize the poor in this country, and liberals feel this subsidization is to be increased.

Thus, the poor receive "just enough" to scrape by, and the trap of near-poverty is in place. Liberals then come along during election time and warn these non taxpayers that the evil conservatives will take away their subsidies - or that these "wealthy" could actually afford to subsidize them even more but are too greedy to do so.

This nation makes it far to easy to remain "poor"...

 

[Againsheila]

I think a fair tax is the only option. I was quite surprised to learn that a whopping 40% of this country fall under the bar & pay no federal income tax what-so-ever. And that less than 1% of the population in this country pay 65% of the entire tax base. Yet--these same people (under the bar--want the rich to pay more???)

More than likely Obama voters--who continually want their way paid for by others.

A little dose of contributing to this country--may wake them up to reality--& get them to become more productive citizens themselves.

Not only do they fall under the bar - they receive tax refunds for money that was never paid in! The upper income brackets already subsidize the poor in this country, and liberals feel this subsidization is to be increased.

Thus, the poor receive "just enough" to scrape by, and the trap of near-poverty is in place. Liberals then come along during election time and warn these non taxpayers that the evil conservatives will take away their subsidies - or that these "wealthy" could actually afford to subsidize them even more but are too greedy to do so.

This nation makes it far to easy to remain "poor"...

The rich make their money of the labor of the poor, the poor don't make enough to live so we have welfare, hence, we are subsidizing the rich who refuse to pay their workers a living wage. The top 10% of this nation owns more wealth than the bottom 90% combined, they should be paying more than 90% of the taxes.