Why We Must Raise Taxes On The Rich:

[sinister59]

tax the churches property as well as income , allow them as anyone to take off charity that goes to the charity , for charity .

 

[georgephillip]

I have said it before and will say so again, they can go ahead and raise taxes on me if they get serious about cutting spending.I'll do my part but their whoring has got to stop and I mean corp. loopholes, spending ahead of pop. growth and inflation the lot of it, its called living within ones means.

here;

from a wapo Samuelson article today;


Few Americans realize the extent of their dependency. The Census Bureau reports that in 2009 almost half (46.2 percent) of the 300 million Americans received at least one federal benefit: 46.5 million, Social Security; 42.6 million, Medicare; 42.4 million, Medicaid; 36.1 million, food stamps; 3.2 million, veterans’ benefits; 12.4 million, housing subsidies. The census list doesn’t include tax breaks. Counting those, perhaps three-quarters or more of Americans receive some sizable government benefit. For example, about 22 percent of taxpayers benefit from the home mortgage interest deduction and 43 percent from the preferential treatment of employer-provided health insurance, says the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Big government on the brink - The Washington Post

now, in 1960 you know what that figure was, as to what % of the pop. was on some type of sppt.? 14%.........now, when Kennedy decided to start ratcheting down taxes and it continued over the decades we, did not live within the means we dictated, we spent ahead always looking away from tomorrow and just to today.

Now, that we are strangling in all of the liabilities we created because we ignored our own tax policy, the answer is; ratchet taxes back up, as if this is the answer?

No, its not, but I am willing to help, stop the spending first, or its no dice, I don't trust them and what I just described is exactly why.

In 1960 when 14% of Americans received at least one federal benefit compared to today's rate of 46.2% what percentage of national income were the richest 1% appropriating?

Twenty-five years ago the figure was 12% for income and 33% for national wealth. Today, those who buy and sell elected Republicans AND Democrats the same way you and I buy newspapers "earn" nearly a quarter of all national income and control 40% of national wealth.

Do you trust those "Americans" who have increased their share of national wealth by nearly two percentage points over the last two years to stop funding the campaigns of millionaire politicians?

Is it likely that "self-interest properly understood" will ever be understood by those who increased their personal wealth during the same two year span that saw millions of their countrymen lose their jobs, homes, retirements and savings?

"In recent weeks we have watched people taking to the streets by the millions to protest political, economic, and social conditions in the oppressive societies they inhabit.

Governments have been toppled in Egypt and Tunisia.

"Protests have erupted in Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain. The ruling families elsewhere in the region look on nervously from their air-conditioned penthouses—will they be next?...

"The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.

"Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn.

"Too late."

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% | Society | Vanity Fair

and this makes little difference, read what I write don't and answer that please, don't quote me and post a strawman ala class warfare, it gets tired and IS tired.

Fair enough.

Do you agree with Samuelson?

"The package to prevent a shutdown barely touches the prevailing stalemate. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s proposed 2012 budget forthrightly addresses health spending but doesn’t make any cuts in Social Security."

Big government on the brink - The Washington Post

 

[ClosedCaption]

Okay, folks, if we want to stick it to rich people in order to deal with our budget deficits, how about we start with THESE rich people?

1) Agricultural subsidies that go to billionaire agricultural corporations, rather than small farmers. Why the hell are we paying agricultural subsidies, anyway?

2) "Green" and "alternative energy" subsidies to big corporations.

3) Government-subsidized insurance for expensive coastal resorts built too close to the ocean for private insurance companies to be willing to insure them.

Problem is, these are all "corporate welfare" programs implemented and favored by the left. So how about it, lefties? Wanna put your money where your "rich fatcat"-hating mouths are and start by skewering your own sacred cows?

The left loves these? I thought the rich loved these. Because all of that shit can go.

Now how about raising taxes AND cutting spending? huh? anyone on the right?

When did "the left" and "the rich" become mutually exclusive, dummy?

Of COURSE rich people - and those who aspire to be - take advantage of whatever possibilities are available. But it's not the right that wants to spend tax dollars on "green businesses", for example.

How about we cut our insane, bloated spending FIRST, and THEN talk about raising taxes? Prove to me that we NEED to raise taxes.

They arent...Which is why I asked why you said "left" instead of "rich"?

@ M14 You can raise taxes and cut spending. That would get us out of the hole faster. Are you denying that?

 

[Bern80]

Shouldn't we just start with you? You're the one that titled the thread Why the rich should pay more taxes. If you're suggesting there is not significant group of people that feels entitled to a certain basic standard of living or certain entitlements, it makes one wonder why the rich really need to pay more in taxes. If you're suggesting there is no group of people that thinks it's owed these entitlements, what exactly is it you need the rich to pay more for?

For openers, how about commencing repair of our crumbling infrastructure and paying off our phenomenal national debt?

Why does that require raising taxes? How can you lefties be so narrow minded? All you know how to do is throw money at things and spend inefficiently. How about we focus first on what our government should legitimaly be spending money on and wasteful spending? THEN we can talk about whether government actually needs more money.

As for the debt, that isn't the riches fault. It's not their responsibility and congress has no right to pass the buck on to them to pay for what amounts to decades of politicians who only know how to get elected by telling people what they'll give them.

 

[Cecilie1200]

tax the churches property as well as income , allow them as anyone to take off charity that goes to the charity , for charity .

And who the fuck are YOU to decide what is and isn't a charity? Churches don't get taxed because they're non-profit organizations. Why don't you clamor to tax OTHER organizations that operate strictly off of voluntary donations?

 

[M14 Shooter]

The left loves these? I thought the rich loved these. Because all of that shit can go.

Now how about raising taxes AND cutting spending? huh? anyone on the right?

When did "the left" and "the rich" become mutually exclusive, dummy?

Of COURSE rich people - and those who aspire to be - take advantage of whatever possibilities are available. But it's not the right that wants to spend tax dollars on "green businesses", for example.

How about we cut our insane, bloated spending FIRST, and THEN talk about raising taxes? Prove to me that we NEED to raise taxes.

They arent...Which is why I asked why you said "left" instead of "rich"?

@ M14 You can raise taxes and cut spending. That would get us out of the hole faster. Are you denying that?

My point is that raising taxes and slashing military spending will not do it - it cannot do it as there is not enough money represened by even the most severe levels of both.

No - to meaningfully attack the deficit, entitlements must be cut.

To not accept this fact is to indicate a clear unseriousness about discussing the deficit, making you part of the problem, not the part of the solution.

 

[MikeK]

Why does that require raising taxes? How can you lefties be so narrow minded? All you know how to do is throw money at things and spend inefficiently. How about we focus first on what our government should legitimaly be spending money on and wasteful spending? THEN we can talk about whether government actually needs more money.

If you have some specific suggestions as to areas in which to cut spending I might agree with you, so let's see what they are. I think a good place to start would be the Pentagon.

As for the debt, that isn't the riches fault. It's not their responsibility and congress has no right to pass the buck on to them to pay for what amounts to decades of politicians who only know how to get elected by telling people what they'll give them.

George W. Bush came to Office when the economy was in surplus, not debt. He started an illegal war which he never included in the Budget and he went off on a profligate spending spree. His wasteful policies included a major reduction in the tax rate of his wealthy "base" (the super-rich) while at the same time financing a major military engagement, an action which violates one of the most basic rules of prudent government.

Bush left Office with the economy under an already crushing debt and the financial system on the verge of collapse, mainly because of the speculative manipulations of those he refers to as his "base," the super rich -- who have managed to amass unprecedented fortunes while the economic level of the middle class is increasingly diminished, with millions unemployed, millions more made homeless by unscrupulous mortgage bankers, and record numbers of formerly secure working Americans brought to the brink of absolute poverty because their jobs have been exported -- by the rich.

 

[MikeK]

No - to meaningfully attack the deficit, entitlements must be cut.

Again you are tossing out hollow ideas. "Entitlements." What specifically are you talking about. What "entitlements?"

Are those who have accumulated massive fortunes "entitled" to have their progressive tax rate reduced from 91% to 35% -- even during a major military engagement? Is that one example of an "entitlement?"

Are the major corporations I've listed before "entitled" to play "off-shore" games and manipulate the IRS Code to pay zero tax on multi-billion dollar profit levels?

Which "entitlements" are you talking about?

 

[georgephillip]

The full bill for all of the bankster entitlements has not yet come due.

When it does, all the fraudulent derivatives that Wall Street sold into our pension funds and the $700 billion taxpayer-supplied bailout and loading the Federal Reserve's balance sheet with several trillion more dollars of junk financial paper to shore up the banks' balance sheets will supply 90%+ of all Americans with a lesson in poverty they can't yet imagine.

Paul Craig Robert was a member of the Reagan Administration who still writes effectively on the virtues of supply-side economics. Roberts was once an editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page whose own op-eds regularly appeared in the New York Times among other establishment organs.

That all changed when he opposed Dubya's invasion of Iraq. The following is part of his assessment 21st Century class war in the US:

"Now the ruling oligarchies have struck again, this time through the federal budget.

"The U.S. government has a huge military/security budget. It is as large as the(military/security?) budgets of the rest of the world combined. The Pentagon, CIA, and Homeland Security budgets account for the $1.1 trillion federal deficit that the Obama administration forecasts for fiscal year 2012.

"This massive deficit spending serves only one purpose--the enrichment of the private companies that serve the military/security complex.

"These companies, along with those on Wall Street, are who elect the U.S. government.

"The U.S. has no enemies except those that the U.S. creates by bombing and invading other countries and by overthrowing foreign leaders and installing American puppets in their place.

"China does not conduct naval exercises off the California coast, but the U.S. conducts war games in the China Sea off China’s coast.

"Russia does not mass troops on Europe’s borders, but the U.S. places missiles on Russia’s borders.

"The U.S. is determined to create as many enemies as possible in order to continue its bleeding of the American population to feed the ravenous military/security complex."

Paul Craig Roberts: A Tool for Class War

 

[Bern80]

If you have some specific suggestions as to areas in which to cut spending I might agree with you, so let's see what they are. I think a good place to start would be the Pentagon.

I think, to make a meaningful dent you start with the largest parts of the budget; defense and entitlements. I think defense could be cut enormously. The purpose of our military should be to deal with threats to our country, period. We don't need a miltary base in a hundred some odd countries. Sometimes two in a county.

Entitlements need to be scaled way back. I would make social security, medicare, medicaid only for those that actually need it.

The department of education can go as well. The federal government has no authority over education and is frankly something that would be handled much more efficiently by the states by themselves.

Simplify the tax code. Ger rid of exemptions, get rid of breaks. Everybody pays the same percentage from a single person, to a family to a corporation. I would do either a flat income tax or federal sales tax.

George W. Bush came to Office when the economy was in surplus, not debt. He started an illegal war which he never included in the Budget and he went off on a profligate spending spree. His wasteful policies included a major reduction in the tax rate of his wealthy "base" (the super-rich) while at the same time financing a major military engagement, an action which violates one of the most basic rules of prudent government.

Bush left Office with the economy under an already crushing debt and the financial system on the verge of collapse, mainly because of the speculative manipulations of those he refers to as his "base," the super rich -- who have managed to amass unprecedented fortunes while the economic level of the middle class is increasingly diminished, with millions unemployed, millions more made homeless by unscrupulous mortgage bankers, and record numbers of formerly secure working Americans brought to the brink of absolute poverty because their jobs have been exported -- by the rich.

The national debt was there before Bush took office though he certainly contributed to it. His tax cuts were for everybody, rich and poor. The middle class getting the largest break in income tax. Even with the cuts the rich are still taxed at a higher percentage rate than the middle class and poor.

Ultimately what Bush did is neither here nor there. The national debt is bigger and is the culmination of more than just the last couple or even few presidents. It came from an ideology that says the purpose of government is to do things for people. And politicians, in order to get elected, just kept promising people shit. Now, surprise, surprise we have an enormous debt.

 

[M14 Shooter]

No - to meaningfully attack the deficit, entitlements must be cut.

Again you are tossing out hollow ideas. "Entitlements." What specifically are you talking about. What "entitlements?"

Everytihng that is included under mandatory spending.
Historical Budget Data

To meaningfully attack the deficit, entitlements must be cut.
To not accept this fact is to indicate a clear unseriousness about discussing the deficit, making you part of the problem, not the part of the solution.
Why do you insist on being part of the problem?

 

[M14 Shooter]

think defense could be cut enormously. The purpose of our military should be to deal with threats to our country, period. We don't need a miltary base in a hundred some odd countries. Sometimes two in a county.

FY2009 - cut defense in half, you reduce the deficit to $1086.1B
Cut defense by 100%, you reduce the deficit to $757.8B

Entitlements need to be scaled way back. I would make social security, medicare, medicaid only for those that actually need it.

FY2009 - cut entitlements in half, you recude the deficit to $269.3B

The department of education can go as well. The federal government has no authority over education and is frankly something that would be handled much more efficiently by the states by themselves.

True Dat.

 

[LibocalypseNow]

Divide & Conquer. Community Organizers thrive on Class Warfare. Pitting American against American is what they do. The guy in there now is a Saul Alinsky disciple. You would think Americans have had enough of this old shit though. I guess we'll see in 2012?

 

[sinister59]

When did "the left" and "the rich" become mutually exclusive, dummy?

Of COURSE rich people - and those who aspire to be - take advantage of whatever possibilities are available. But it's not the right that wants to spend tax dollars on "green businesses", for example.

How about we cut our insane, bloated spending FIRST, and THEN talk about raising taxes? Prove to me that we NEED to raise taxes.

They arent...Which is why I asked why you said "left" instead of "rich"?

@ M14 You can raise taxes and cut spending. That would get us out of the hole faster. Are you denying that?

My point is that raising taxes and slashing military spending will not do it - it cannot do it as there is not enough money represened by even the most severe levels of both.

No - to meaningfully attack the deficit, entitlements must be cut.

To not accept this fact is to indicate a clear unseriousness about discussing the deficit, making you part of the problem, not the part of the solution.

only if your really smoking a lot of dope .
W spent so much money screwing over old people wont do it .

this is catch up with bushs spending spree , I don't know what will get us out , but going after your parents isn't it , I guess vets are in your shits too ?

I don't know the answer to this but neither do you ,

maybe a little of everything and tax the crap out of the rich too .

you get a obscene bonus tax it like you won the lottery ,

the bigger the pay check the bigger the percentage ,
federal sails tax , the more you spend the more tax's ,

flat rate tax no deductions .

there's a few suggestions

 

[M14 Shooter]

They arent...Which is why I asked why you said "left" instead of "rich"?

@ M14 You can raise taxes and cut spending. That would get us out of the hole faster. Are you denying that?

My point is that raising taxes and slashing military spending will not do it - it cannot do it as there is not enough money represened by even the most severe levels of both.

No - to meaningfully attack the deficit, entitlements must be cut.

To not accept this fact is to indicate a clear unseriousness about discussing the deficit, making you part of the problem, not the part of the solution.

only if your really smoking a lot of dope .
W spent so much money screwing over old people wont do it .

You clearly dont understand the particulars of th e situation, nor how much we spend on entitlements - entitlement spending, alone, exceeds total revenues.

 

[Bern80]

They arent...Which is why I asked why you said "left" instead of "rich"?

@ M14 You can raise taxes and cut spending. That would get us out of the hole faster. Are you denying that?

My point is that raising taxes and slashing military spending will not do it - it cannot do it as there is not enough money represened by even the most severe levels of both.

No - to meaningfully attack the deficit, entitlements must be cut.

To not accept this fact is to indicate a clear unseriousness about discussing the deficit, making you part of the problem, not the part of the solution.

only if your really smoking a lot of dope .
W spent so much money screwing over old people wont do it .

this is catch up with bushs spending spree , I don't know what will get us out , but going after your parents isn't it , I guess vets are in your shits too ?

I don't know the answer to this but neither do you ,

maybe a little of everything and tax the crap out of the rich too .

you get a obscene bonus tax it like you won the lottery ,

the bigger the pay check the bigger the percentage ,
federal sails tax , the more you spend the more tax's ,

flat rate tax no deductions .

there's a few suggestions

Please explain why it is fair to tax people more just because they make more. Tax, tax, tax. Just another narrow minded greedy fucking lib. You people are like a blood thristy lynch mob that thinks they just gotta stick it to someone.

 

[Jarhead]

They arent...Which is why I asked why you said "left" instead of "rich"?

@ M14 You can raise taxes and cut spending. That would get us out of the hole faster. Are you denying that?

My point is that raising taxes and slashing military spending will not do it - it cannot do it as there is not enough money represened by even the most severe levels of both.

No - to meaningfully attack the deficit, entitlements must be cut.

To not accept this fact is to indicate a clear unseriousness about discussing the deficit, making you part of the problem, not the part of the solution.

only if your really smoking a lot of dope .
W spent so much money screwing over old people wont do it .

this is catch up with bushs spending spree , I don't know what will get us out , but going after your parents isn't it , I guess vets are in your shits too ?

I don't know the answer to this but neither do you ,

maybe a little of everything and tax the crap out of the rich too .

you get a obscene bonus tax it like you won the lottery ,

the bigger the pay check the bigger the percentage ,
federal sails tax , the more you spend the more tax's ,

flat rate tax no deductions .

there's a few suggestions

Wow.

Obama doubled down on Bush's spending....yet all you mention is Bush's spending.

And what is ironic...when Bush was spending, the deficit was not front page news qand something discussed daily....when Obama doubled down on the spending, he was IGNORING it as front page news and a growing concern....

So....your obvious partisanship sort of makes your post completely irrelevant.

 

[Spoonman]

My point is that raising taxes and slashing military spending will not do it - it cannot do it as there is not enough money represened by even the most severe levels of both.

No - to meaningfully attack the deficit, entitlements must be cut.

To not accept this fact is to indicate a clear unseriousness about discussing the deficit, making you part of the problem, not the part of the solution.

only if your really smoking a lot of dope .
W spent so much money screwing over old people wont do it .

this is catch up with bushs spending spree , I don't know what will get us out , but going after your parents isn't it , I guess vets are in your shits too ?

I don't know the answer to this but neither do you ,

maybe a little of everything and tax the crap out of the rich too .

you get a obscene bonus tax it like you won the lottery ,

the bigger the pay check the bigger the percentage ,
federal sails tax , the more you spend the more tax's ,

flat rate tax no deductions .

there's a few suggestions

Wow.

Obama doubled down on Bush's spending....yet all you mention is Bush's spending.

And what is ironic...when Bush was spending, the deficit was not front page news qand something discussed daily....when Obama doubled down on the spending, he was IGNORING it as front page news and a growing concern....

So....your obvious partisanship sort of makes your post completely irrelevant.

loony liberals live in a bubble. they are so out of touch with reality

 

[hortysir]

Cavuto raised an interesting figure.
Can anybody confirm or dispute it?

If we were to raise everyone's taxes by 50% we'd still have an $800 billion deficit.
????????????

 

[California Girl]

how about instead of being a bitch and wanting to cut libs favorite subsidies we cut all corporate welfare , oil coal , any and all . let them make it by their own strength .
don't pay a farmer for not growing , offshore business tax,and more , tariffs .

pay for your own kids education .

Cut the whole fucking bunch, I'm good with that.

And, I will pay for what I want - including education - you pay for yourself, I'll pay for me. Minimum taxes to cover essential, Constitutional, services only. Nothing else. No welfare, no bullshit programs, no 'special interests'.