[POLL] - Liberals, how much is a "fair share?" - Taxes

[EdwardBaiamonte]

The goal is to make the poor having more.

stop giving them free education, health care, housing, food, etc and you will have fewer poor rather than rapidly propagating poor. Also, end the liberal attack on the family and you will have millions fewer poor single mothers and kids.

There are dust-bunnies that have a higher IQ than you do.

ad hominem from typical liberal without IQ for substance

 

[AmazonTania]

The average share of wealth between the Top 1% and Bottom 99% historically has more or less been the same and has remained relatively stable. Most generally talks about income inequality are mostly misunderstood.

 

[thereisnospoon]

rising inequality do hurts the poor and benefits the rich.

except its not a zero sum game.

You are right, it's not. But this is not about the poor getting poorer. It's about their incomes growing too slow, so the incomes of those already rich could grow faster.

That's false. The number of wealthy and of people entering and staying in the middle class has grown significantly in the last 40 years.
Additional and more confiscatory taxation will not assist the poor in becoming more prosperous. It simply makes those who produce wealth less prosperous.
Wealth creation does not and never will begin with government. It ends because of government.

 

[Derideo_Te]

stop giving them free education, health care, housing, food, etc and you will have fewer poor rather than rapidly propagating poor. Also, end the liberal attack on the family and you will have millions fewer poor single mothers and kids.

There are dust-bunnies that have a higher IQ than you do.

can we conclude you believe in hand outs rather than hand ups?

Republicans are notorious for withholding hand ups.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

There are dust-bunnies that have a higher IQ than you do.

can we conclude you believe in hand outs rather than hand ups?

Republicans are notorious for withholding hand ups.

if so why be so afraid to present your best example? What does your fear tell you about the liberal IQ??

 

[thereisnospoon]

Hey, asshole. You've asked for a proof that a millionaire would have paid 2/3 of his income in taxes. And I gave it to you.

And now you are demanding that I find an actual person? **** you!

No, that is not proof. You failed to include deductions and loopholes that would shelter 90% of that income from any taxes at all.

I have not failed, I was not asked to account for the loopholes. The question was how a million of non-investment income would be taxed, and the answer is that 2/3 of it would have to be given away.

But you are free to list any deductions and loopholes that would apply to this scenario.

You excluded the deductions to make your point which is NOT based in fact.
For example.
Let's say you made oh, $300,000 last year. If you are single, own no property, have no charitable contributions, no children, no business losses, no business expenses..In other words you took the Standard Deduction..Then yes, you would pay the rate for that level of income. As we know, nearly everyone has deductions other than their personal exemptions.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Your failure to read your own sources is truly pathetic.

Average rates don't matter, we are talking about the rich.

And you keep ignoring my central argument about the economy in 50s-60s. It was growing fast despite the fact that it was impossible for people to get really rich. There was much less opportunity to make millions in non-investment income. And even if someone managed to do that (very few did), they would have to give away most of their earnings in taxes.

It was much more egalitarian society, yet the economy did not suffer. And that confirms that we can fix much higher income inequality by taxing the rich more and helping working poor and middle class without hurting the overall economy.

During the 2012 campaign, it was broadly discussed that the income gap between rich and poor had increased to its highest level since 1967.

Did you get that? The last time the income gap was this broad was in the 1960's. And there wasn't a great deal of change in that between the 1950's and 60's suggesting that in the years since, the disparity has been something less than it was then.

But even WITH that disparity, history records this:

The performance of the American economy in the decades after World War II appeared to many contemporaries to be, as one historian wrote at the time, “the crossing of a great divide in the history of humanity.” It was often described as an “economic miracle.” The GNP was growing fourteen times as fast as the population and seven times the rate of inflation. The average family income grew as much in the ten years after World War II as it had grown in the previous fifty years combined. Between 1940 and 1965, average income grew from about $2,200 per family per year to just under $8,000; when adjusted for inflation, that means average family incomes almost tripled. . . .

And this. . . .

There were many claims at the time that not only was America becoming wealthier, but that it was becoming more “equal,” that wealth was being redistributed at the same time it was increasing. That was not true. There was no significant redistribution of wealth in the 1950s and 1960s, up or down, simply an increase in the total amount of wealth. But significantly—and in sharp contrast to the period since the mid-1970s—while there was no downward redistribution of wealth, neither was there an upward distribution of wealth. Distribution patterns, in other words, remained unchanged—the wealthy and the poor experienced roughly the same rates of growth. The gap between them remained the same.
The Fifties | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

And I believe research of the 1 percenters will show that a whole bunch of them got their start in the 1950's and 60's that encouraged prosperity rather than discouraged it.

Isn't obstructing jobs bills a way of discouraging prosperity?

There already was a jobs "bill"...It was called 'stimulus' . Nearly one trillion dollars and no results.
Job creation cannot begin with government spending or taxation.
I wonder who it is who told you it did.

 

[RKMBrown]

stop giving them free education, health care, housing, food, etc and you will have fewer poor rather than rapidly propagating poor. Also, end the liberal attack on the family and you will have millions fewer poor single mothers and kids.

There are dust-bunnies that have a higher IQ than you do.

can we conclude you believe in hand outs rather than hand ups?

Can we also conclude that you don't know what a hand up is?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

There already was a jobs "bill"...It was called 'stimulus' . Nearly one trillion dollars and no results.
Job creation cannot begin with government spending or taxation.
I wonder who it is who told you it did.

great points, perhaps the liberal can reflect on the fact that we got from the stone age to here based on private sector inventions which are what cause economc growth, and not from government which does not invent new products and therefore can't grow the economy or create net new jobs.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Your failure to read your own sources is truly pathetic.

Average rates don't matter, we are talking about the rich.

And you keep ignoring my central argument about the economy in 50s-60s. It was growing fast despite the fact that it was impossible for people to get really rich. There was much less opportunity to make millions in non-investment income. And even if someone managed to do that (very few did), they would have to give away most of their earnings in taxes.

It was much more egalitarian society, yet the economy did not suffer. And that confirms that we can fix much higher income inequality by taxing the rich more and helping working poor and middle class without hurting the overall economy.

During the 2012 campaign, it was broadly discussed that the income gap between rich and poor had increased to its highest level since 1967.

Did you get that? The last time the income gap was this broad was in the 1960's. And there wasn't a great deal of change in that between the 1950's and 60's suggesting that in the years since, the disparity has been something less than it was then.

But even WITH that disparity, history records this:

The performance of the American economy in the decades after World War II appeared to many contemporaries to be, as one historian wrote at the time, “the crossing of a great divide in the history of humanity.” It was often described as an “economic miracle.” The GNP was growing fourteen times as fast as the population and seven times the rate of inflation. The average family income grew as much in the ten years after World War II as it had grown in the previous fifty years combined. Between 1940 and 1965, average income grew from about $2,200 per family per year to just under $8,000; when adjusted for inflation, that means average family incomes almost tripled. . . .

And this. . . .

There were many claims at the time that not only was America becoming wealthier, but that it was becoming more “equal,” that wealth was being redistributed at the same time it was increasing. That was not true. There was no significant redistribution of wealth in the 1950s and 1960s, up or down, simply an increase in the total amount of wealth. But significantly—and in sharp contrast to the period since the mid-1970s—while there was no downward redistribution of wealth, neither was there an upward distribution of wealth. Distribution patterns, in other words, remained unchanged—the wealthy and the poor experienced roughly the same rates of growth. The gap between them remained the same.
The Fifties | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

And I believe research of the 1 percenters will show that a whole bunch of them got their start in the 1950's and 60's that encouraged prosperity rather than discouraged it.

Isn't obstructing jobs bills a way of discouraging prosperity?

The objection was to the tax increases that go along with the bill that really would not create any jobs.
These so called jobs bills are simply political payoffs to those who support the current administration. In other words 'subsidies'.
There is a poster on here that calls himself, 'one percenter'...he has made it abundantly clear he believes only wealthy GOP controlled businesses get subsidies.

 

[KissMy]

rising inequality do hurts the poor and benefits the rich.

except its not a zero sum game.

You are right, it's not. But this is not about the poor getting poorer. It's about their incomes growing too slow, so the incomes of those already rich could grow faster.

The tax code subsidizes the rich causing this. They get all the wealth that the middle class makes. “There’s class warfare, all right,” Warren Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He entered how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”

We have to get rid of payroll taxes before 400 billionaires own the entire country. That is their objective in order to impose agenda 21 on all of us.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

rising inequality do hurts the poor and benefits the rich.

except its not a zero sum game.

You are right, it's not. But this is not about the poor getting poorer. It's about their incomes growing too slow, so the incomes of those already rich could grow faster.

Jobs Gates Ellison Ford, GM etc etc are getting richer and richer only because the poor all around the world keep buying more and more of their products. The poor make the rich richer and the rich make the poor richer. They are 100% dependent on each other. There is no data or line of reasoning that makes it possible for the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor. If you have it please present it or admit the very concept is contradictory and liberal.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Isn't obstructing jobs bills a way of discouraging prosperity?

It depends on what is in the bill. The title often bears little resemblance to the actual content and intent of the legislation itself. If anybody is obstructing the people keeping more of what they earn, is obstructing private sector growth and jobs creation, is obstructing private initative and innovation, then yes, obstructing jobs bills discourages prosperity.

However your question is non sequitur to the post you quoted isn't it?

Not in the least. If the issue was discouraging prosperity then anything that obstructs the creation of jobs would meet that definition. That you felt the need to parse the context rather than to accept it as a simple statement of fact means that you are finding excuses rather than addressing the issue.

LOL....One more time. Government cannot simply wave a magic wand( pass a law that mandates spending) and create a single job.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

It depends on what is in the bill. The title often bears little resemblance to the actual content and intent of the legislation itself. If anybody is obstructing the people keeping more of what they earn, is obstructing private sector growth and jobs creation, is obstructing private initative and innovation, then yes, obstructing jobs bills discourages prosperity.

However your question is non sequitur to the post you quoted isn't it?

Not in the least. If the issue was discouraging prosperity then anything that obstructs the creation of jobs would meet that definition. That you felt the need to parse the context rather than to accept it as a simple statement of fact means that you are finding excuses rather than addressing the issue.

LOL....One more time. Government cannot simply wave a magic wand( pass a law that mandates spending) and create a single job.

if it worked you'd think some country would have tried it by now and all the world would agree it worked?? Europe has 50% of GDP spending and 12% unemployment and a huge recession!!

FDR tried it too:

Here's what Henry Morgenthau, FDR's Secretary of the Treasury (the man who desperately needed the New Deal to succeed as much as Roosevelt) said about the New Deal jobs bills:

"We have tried spending money.We are spending more than we ever have spent before and it does not work... We have never made good on our promises...I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started... And an enormous debt to boot!"

"The New Republic"( at the time a FDR greatest supporter") noted. In June 1939, the federal public works programs still supported almost 19 million people, nearly 15% of the population" [page 313]

In fact in 1939, unemployment was at 17%, and there were 11 million additional in stimulus make work welfare jobs. Today when the population is 2.5 times greater we have only 8 million unemployed. Conclusion: legislation to make Democrats illegal
is urgently needed

 

[PMZ]

It's well known that capitalism as an economic system distributes wealth up. That's how and why it works. Left only to its own devices all of the wealth would end up very concentrated and society would go unstable.

So, as a country, we use our taxation policy to counter that natural economic system tendency, in order to keep society stable.

What the wealthy would prefer of course is to take advantage of the system to gather wealth and just keep it. And hope that the collapse of society occurs after they die.

So the question, "what is enough" has to be asked of everyone and consider both the upward and downward forces.

In a famous poll, Americans were asked what wealth distribution was ideal, and what they thought was where we actually are. They were aghast to see where we actually are compared to both of those.

 

[PMZ]

It depends on what is in the bill. The title often bears little resemblance to the actual content and intent of the legislation itself. If anybody is obstructing the people keeping more of what they earn, is obstructing private sector growth and jobs creation, is obstructing private initative and innovation, then yes, obstructing jobs bills discourages prosperity.

However your question is non sequitur to the post you quoted isn't it?

Not in the least. If the issue was discouraging prosperity then anything that obstructs the creation of jobs would meet that definition. That you felt the need to parse the context rather than to accept it as a simple statement of fact means that you are finding excuses rather than addressing the issue.

LOL....One more time. Government cannot simply wave a magic wand( pass a law that mandates spending) and create a single job.

Employment and unemployment is a function of business, not government.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

It's well known that capitalism as an economic system distributes wealth up.

of course thats really really stupid since Gates and Jobs cant get wealthy without distributing goods or wealth downward!!

Henry Ford made $1.29 a car by giving far far more wealth to the millions and millions who bought his cars!! Capitalism distributes wealth down which explains why the poor now have Iphones, access to state of the art medical care, and $12,000 per capita per year year in free public education.





]

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

So, as a country, we use our taxation policy to counter that natural economic system tendency, in order to keep society stable.

too stupid of course!! Europe has far higher taxes and has less stability than we do with several countries rioting in the streets!!

 

[PMZ]

It's well known that capitalism as an economic system distributes wealth up.

of course thats really really stupid since Gates and Jobs cant get wealthy without distributing goods or wealth downward!!

Henry Ford made $1.29 a car by giving far far more wealth to the millions and millions who bought his cars!! Capitalism distributes wealth down which explains why the poor now have Iphones, access to state of the art medical care, and $12,000 per capita per year year in free public education.


]

Henry Ford, Jobs, and Gates never built a thing. They owned the factories that other people used to create wealth from their labor. The value of the wealth workers created then allowed the workers to buy the wealth created by other workers.

Ford had one good idea that created all of his wealth. Pay the workers enough to afford cars.

Jobs was a megalomaniac who happened to befriend Wozniak at a time when nobody else had yet envisioned personal computers. Same with Gates. If they hadn't done what they did someone else surly would have.

 

[PMZ]

So, as a country, we use our taxation policy to counter that natural economic system tendency, in order to keep society stable.

too stupid of course!! Europe has far higher taxes and has less stability than we do with several countries rioting in the streets!!

You are as good an example as I've seen of folks who let Rush and Rupert think for them.

No rioting in Europe. Comparable taxes. Comparable extreme wealth distribution. One difference. Europe fell for government austerity measures, as Republicans tried to sell here, and have therefore failed to recover from Bush's Great Recession as quickly as we have with demand side investment.