Revive Main Street by Taxing Wall Street

[thereisnospoon]

If it's true the richest 1% of Americans have increased their share of the national income by about two percent (~37%-~39%) during the last two years would you call them selective or equal (or greedy)?

This is a straw man argument put forth by those who believe there is a finite amount of available wealth.
Once again, wealth is created. It does not exist in a vacuum. Now is there a magic pot of wealth that is held by a secret society which decides who gets more or as in the mindset of the Left, who gets less.
It is not a zero sum game.

It would seem there has been a finite amount of national income produced over the last two years.

If the richest 1% of Americans have increased their share of national income from ~37% to ~39% during that time, it is, in fact, a zero sum game with government picking the winners and losers.

You continue to simply insist....Your analysis is incorrect. Period.

 

[georgephillip]

Because speculators weren't the primary cause of the Financial Crisis.

More so than Social Security or Medicare?

No....Social entitlements are breaking this country.
Social Security now officially has fewer contributing than those receiving benefits.
The Left's reaction to this is "Bush took the money from the trust fund"....We all know that is a political campaign strategy and nothing else.
SS would have worked if the federal government had left all the money in a separate account not to be touched for ANY reason. In fact, my idea of SS is for each worker to have their own account from which they draw from after their retirement. This is similar to the Canadian pension system.
SS is broken and it contribute to the economic downfall of the USA.

Until last year Social Security took in more in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits and lent its surpluses to the rest of government.

That has changed, and it's time for government to repay Social Security the funds it rightly owes. If this occurs it will keep Social Security solvent for the next 26 years.

In 1983 Alan Greenspan's Social Security commission supposedly fixed Social Security for good by gradually increasing payroll taxes and raising the retirement age.

Greenspan accurately predicted how quickly the "boomers" would age and how fast the economy would grow, but he missed big time on one major prediction.

Inequality

"Remember, the Social Security payroll tax applies only to earnings up to a certain ceiling. (That ceiling is now $106,800.)

"The ceiling rises every year according to a formula roughly matching inflation.

"Back in 1983, the ceiling was set so the Social Security payroll tax would hit 90 percent of all wages covered by Social Security. That 90 percent figure was built into the Greenspan Commission’s fixes. The Commission assumed that, as the ceiling rose with inflation, the Social Security payroll tax would continue to hit 90 percent of total income.

"Today, though, the Social Security payroll tax hits only about 84 percent of total income.

"It went from 90 percent to 84 percent because a larger and larger portion of total income has gone to the top.

"In 1983, the richest 1 percent of Americans got 11.6 percent of total income. Today the top 1 percent takes in more than 20 percent.

"If we want to go back to 90 percent, the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security tax would need to be raised to $180,000.

"Presto. Social Security’s long-term (beyond 26 years from now) problem would be solved."

 

[georgephillip]

What product does Wall street produce?
Once the stock is sold by a corporation then all the money from there on out is just made by stock trades which produce nothing except more money for more stock trades.

So mostly Wall Street just produces more money to trade more stock and no real product.

Wall Street Produces Inequity

"There is also the serious matter of equity.

"When people, who pay 6 percent to 8 percent in sales taxes on necessities every day, learn that there is zero sales tax on daily purchases of billions of shares, bonds and derivatives, they understandably get upset.

"It doesn’t matter whether they are conservatives or liberals, or whether it is during normal years on Wall Street or the recent massive collapse and bailout.

"If anything, the political climate for a financial transactions tax has never been better.

"It is time for a robust public initiative to replace the stagnant taboos now plaguing Congress and the White House.

(Ralph Nader is the founder of Public Citizen and author of the book “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” The opinions expressed are his own.)"

Here's the problem I have with this....Let's suppose for a moment the feds go ahead and enact their financial transaction tax....Typically new taxes do not REPLACE other taxes. These new taxes are simply in ADDITION TO existing taxes. That in and of itself give the perception that the government is performing a money grab.
T address your post below....Since your side believes in unqualified "fairness and equality of outcome", how do you justify a 60% tax rate on anyone?

I would justify a 60% tax rate tomorrow the same way Americans justified a highest marginal tax rate average over 70% between the late 1940s and 1980.

The same way Eisenhower Republicans and Kennedy Democrats accepted a 91% rate in the 1950s.

"Incidentally, during these years the nation’s pre-tax income was far less concentrated at the top than it is now.

"In the mid-1970s, for example, the top 1 percent got around 9 percent of total income. By 2007, they got 23.5 percent.

"So if anything, the argument for a higher marginal tax should be even more realistic now than it was during the days when it was taken for granted."

Why We Should Raise Taxes...

 

[Charles_Main]

I do not see how taxing the people who invest money in Main street stocks, will help main street.

LOL

You people are so deft.

 

[JWBooth]

You are making an incorrect assumption that it is the government's role to place value judgments upon a citizen's worth by manipulating the tax code as either punishment or reward.

It is no assumption, the silly bastard is advocating for redistribution at the point of a gun.

 

[MSNY]

You are making an incorrect assumption that it is the government's role to place value judgments upon a citizen's worth by manipulating the tax code as either punishment or reward.

It is no assumption, the silly bastard is advocating for redistribution at the point of a gun.

In the middle ages peasants like georgephillip would come upon a so called
"robber barren" and think, "he has the money, get him". They would
then rob him, beat him, and leave him for dead.

The next day, georgephillip was the very same "robber barrens", and lo and
behold, another set of peasants, did the very same thing to georgephillip, as he
had done the day before.

Moral of the story, wealth redistidution is thievery at its finest.
And with liberals like this guy running around touting it, it never
ends, cause the next guy gets robbed....again and again.

And georgephillip calls this fairness?

 

[thereisnospoon]

More so than Social Security or Medicare?

No....Social entitlements are breaking this country.
Social Security now officially has fewer contributing than those receiving benefits.
The Left's reaction to this is "Bush took the money from the trust fund"....We all know that is a political campaign strategy and nothing else.
SS would have worked if the federal government had left all the money in a separate account not to be touched for ANY reason. In fact, my idea of SS is for each worker to have their own account from which they draw from after their retirement. This is similar to the Canadian pension system.
SS is broken and it contribute to the economic downfall of the USA.

Until last year Social Security took in more in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits and lent its surpluses to the rest of government.

That has changed, and it's time for government to repay Social Security the funds it rightly owes. If this occurs it will keep Social Security solvent for the next 26 years.

In 1983 Alan Greenspan's Social Security commission supposedly fixed Social Security for good by gradually increasing payroll taxes and raising the retirement age.

Greenspan accurately predicted how quickly the "boomers" would age and how fast the economy would grow, but he missed big time on one major prediction.

Inequality

"Remember, the Social Security payroll tax applies only to earnings up to a certain ceiling. (That ceiling is now $106,800.)

"The ceiling rises every year according to a formula roughly matching inflation.

"Back in 1983, the ceiling was set so the Social Security payroll tax would hit 90 percent of all wages covered by Social Security. That 90 percent figure was built into the Greenspan Commission’s fixes. The Commission assumed that, as the ceiling rose with inflation, the Social Security payroll tax would continue to hit 90 percent of total income.

"Today, though, the Social Security payroll tax hits only about 84 percent of total income.

"It went from 90 percent to 84 percent because a larger and larger portion of total income has gone to the top.

"In 1983, the richest 1 percent of Americans got 11.6 percent of total income. Today the top 1 percent takes in more than 20 percent.

"If we want to go back to 90 percent, the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security tax would need to be raised to $180,000.

"Presto. Social Security’s long-term (beyond 26 years from now) problem would be solved."

No....The solution is NOT to increase taxes. The solution is to STOP TAKING MONEY FROM SS.....SS money should never have been permitted to be included in the general or any other fund.
SS is underfunded not because of the percentage of income deducted. It is coming up short because people are simply living longer. Additionally, the Greenspan commission miscalculated how many people were going to retire from 2000 thru 2020.
In order to fix SS, since there is no money to repay the system, the simple solution is to lift the ceiling on the income level. Yes, there will be howls of protest from those affected, but this is necessary.

 

[georgephillip]

You are making an incorrect assumption that it is the government's role to place value judgments upon a citizen's worth by manipulating the tax code as either punishment or reward.

But isn't that how government socializes cost and privatizes profit?

Robert Reich claims in the mid-1970s the richest 1% got about 9% of total income. "By 2007, they got 23.5%."

Isn't that an example of the government manipulating the tax code as a reward for the campaign donations bestowed upon Republicans AND Democrats through those 30 years by the richest 1%?

Why We Should Raise Taxes...

 

[thereisnospoon]

You are making an incorrect assumption that it is the government's role to place value judgments upon a citizen's worth by manipulating the tax code as either punishment or reward.

It is no assumption, the silly bastard is advocating for redistribution at the point of a gun.

In the middle ages peasants like georgephillip would come upon a so called
"robber barren" and think, "he has the money, get him". They would
then rob him, beat him, and leave him for dead.

The next day, georgephillip was the very same "robber barrens", and lo and
behold, another set of peasants, did the very same thing to georgephillip, as he
had done the day before.

Moral of the story, wealth redistidution is thievery at its finest.
And with liberals like this guy running around touting it, it never
ends, cause the next guy gets robbed....again and again.

And georgephillip calls this fairness?

Georgephillip.....what a toolbag

 

[georgephillip]

What is your problem with raising taxes on the Super Rich and lowering taxes on the middle class?

"For years progressives have whined that Democratic presidents (Clinton, followed by Obama) compromise with Republicans while Republican presidents (Reagan through W) stand their ground – with the result that the center of political debate has moved steadily rightward.

"That’s the reason the world exists the way it does today...

And that is also the reason the richest 1% of Republicans AND Democrats held about 9% of total US income in the mid-1970s and currently possess 23.5% (2007)

Why We Should Raise...

Stop thinking like a stool-bag.

 

[georgephillip]

I do not see how taxing the people who invest money in Main street stocks, will help main street.

LOL

You people are so deft.

By putting more money in the pockets of middle class consumers who make or break Main Street.

"The most direct way to get more money into their pockets is to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (a wage subsidy) all the way up through people earning $50,000, and reduce their income taxes to zero.

"Taxes on incomes between $50,000 and $90,000 should be cut to 10 percent; between $90,000 and $150,000 to 20 percent; between $150,000 and $250,000 to 30 percent.

"And exempt the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes.

"Make up the revenues by increasing taxes on incomes between $250,000 to $500,000 to 40 percent; between $500,000 and $5 million, to 50 percent; between $5 million and $15 million, to 60 percent; and anything over $15 million, to 70 percent.

"And raise the ceiling on the portion of income subject to payroll taxes to $500,000."

The Obama Budget...

 

[thereisnospoon]

What is your problem with raising taxes on the Super Rich and lowering taxes on the middle class?

"For years progressives have whined that Democratic presidents (Clinton, followed by Obama) compromise with Republicans while Republican presidents (Reagan through W) stand their ground – with the result that the center of political debate has moved steadily rightward.

"That’s the reason the world exists the way it does today...

And that is also the reason the richest 1% of Republicans AND Democrats held about 9% of total US income in the mid-1970s and currently possess 23.5% (2007)

Why We Should Raise...

Stop thinking like a stool-bag.

The problem is this. Simply increasing taxes for the sake of taxation is not good policy. Increasing tax burden DECREASES revenue to the federal government. History has shown that time and again.
You are looking at taxation as a response to your insistence that there are those who have more than you are comfortable with. So instead of using your ingenuity and ambition to raise your station, you seek to punish those who in your view have "won the lottery of life".

At the end the day the one problem facing government with regard to taxation is that government spends far more money than it collects.
When government gets it's fiscal house in order, then you may think about having your precious tax increases.

 

[georgephillip]

Oh I get it. Let's have even FEWER people paying federal income taxes....
Look, genius, history proves that when government raises taxes on the producers not only does economic activity suffer, revenues to the federal government decrease.
Your "tax Wall Street" notion is a class envy straw man argument.
What you propose is not progressive taxation, it is confiscation of wealth.
Admit it. You believe in the redistribution of wealth from the producers to the non-producers. You believe in unfettered "fairness"...
Look, if you think the government needs more money, here's an idea that is a virtual certainty to work...
Tax all incomes above $30k for an individual and $50k for a family of 4 a rate of 15% of their gross income after State taxes are deducted. NO write offs. No deductions of any kind. A true flat tax.
And don't start screaming about how it's unfair because 15% of $50,000 leaves a family of 4 with just $42,500 while 15% of $100,000 leaves another with $85,000....Realize that the person who has more SPENDS more and stimulates the economy while doing it.
The more well off person buys more expensive homes which contribute locally to property taxes. The more well off person is more likely to invest in business which creates jobs. The more well off person buys more consumables....see where we are going here sunshine?
The federal government does not need more of our money. The federal government needs to learn to spend LESS..
BTW, Obama's budget proposal has $1.5 trillion in unfunded expenditures.
What he calls" drastic cuts" in spending are not cuts at all. In his budget all federal agencies respective budgets are getting a 1% increase in funding....When Obama and democrats refer to "cuts" what they really mean is a lower increase in the next FY budget.
BTW, the GOP's $100 billion in cuts is a joke....It should be 5 times that. However the GOP leadership knows well that any cuts to entitlements are politically unpalatable.

How are you defining "producer?"

Does Wall Street produce more value than American small business owners or a public school teacher?

Does the value produced by a single hedge fund CEO making $1 billion/year equal the value of 20,000 public school teachers earning $50,000/year?

Was it the teachers or CEO who contributed most to the need for a $13 trillion taxpayer bailout of other rich parasites?

Why do you consider a flat tax fair when it leaves the teacher $42,500 after taxes and the CEO $850,000,000?

The CEO quickly reaches a saturation level with purchases and begins buying financial instruments like bonds which add to the debt overhead that is pushing this economy into debt deflation and blind slaves like you into debt peonage.

It's the debt, Stupid.

anyone who earns wages for work is a producer. Spare me the only unionized workers who work in factories are producers" bullshit...That's not even in the ballpark.,..
To answer your last question, it is not about "fair"...it is about what is right. A flat tax is the most correct and equitable solution. No deductions. No loopholes.
How many people actually earn $1billion per year? Maybe two or three. Your argument is moot....stop the nonsense.
It was not the choice of these companies to take bailout money. It was forced upon them.
In fact, the Obama admin was very pissed off at Bank Of America when that firm paid their bailout back so quickly.
I think the companies that were on the verge of failure should have been allowed to fail.
BTW, there were several banks that refused bailout money. In fact a bank in Massachusettes was called on the carpet by the Obama admin for not lending enough money to low and moderate income people...HUH? The Obama admin criticized banks for causing the mortgage meltdown when they knew full well that it was federal regulations and pressure that caused the whole mess. So you can take your $13 trillion and stow it. That crap doesn't wash here.
You have enmity against people who you view as "having too much"....so be it. That's just childish class envy.

"How many people actually earn a billion dollars a year?"

Let's start at the top:

"Last year, America’s top thirteen hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion each.

"One of them took home $5 billion.

"Much of their income is taxed as capital gains – at 15 percent – due to a tax loophole that Republican members of Congress have steadfastly guarded.

"If the earnings of those thirteen hedge-fund managers were taxed as ordinary income, the revenues generated would pay the salaries and benefits of over 5 million teachers.

"Who is more valuable to our society – thirteen hedge-fund managers or 5 million teachers?

"Let’s make the question even simpler. Who is more valuable: One hedge fund manager or one teacher?"

Robert Reich

 

[Charles_Main]

Gotta love the logic of this idea.

So Main Street is hurting, and screaming because the Banks will not lend them money.

Your solution, Tax the people who invest(LEND) money.

Foolish.

 

[georgephillip]

What is your problem with raising taxes on the Super Rich and lowering taxes on the middle class?

"For years progressives have whined that Democratic presidents (Clinton, followed by Obama) compromise with Republicans while Republican presidents (Reagan through W) stand their ground – with the result that the center of political debate has moved steadily rightward.

"That’s the reason the world exists the way it does today...

And that is also the reason the richest 1% of Republicans AND Democrats held about 9% of total US income in the mid-1970s and currently possess 23.5% (2007)

Why We Should Raise...

Stop thinking like a stool-bag.

The problem is this. Simply increasing taxes for the sake of taxation is not good policy. Increasing tax burden DECREASES revenue to the federal government. History has shown that time and again.
You are looking at taxation as a response to your insistence that there are those who have more than you are comfortable with. So instead of using your ingenuity and ambition to raise your station, you seek to punish those who in your view have "won the lottery of life".

At the end the day the one problem facing government with regard to taxation is that government spends far more money than it collects.
When government gets it's fiscal house in order, then you may think about having your precious tax increases.

Tax increases would apply only to those earning over $250,000 per year. Anyone earning less would see their taxes decline.

Exempt the first $20,000/year from payroll taxes.
Expand EITC to include people earning up to $50,000/year and reduce their income taxes to $0
Pay 10% on incomes between $50,000 - $90,000/year.
Pay 20% on incomes between $90,000 - $120,000/year
Pay 30% on incomes between $120,000 - $250,000/year

Pay for these tax decreases by taxing your precious billionaires at 70% before prosecuting said billionaires for securities and control fraud.

"Make up the revenues by increasing taxes on incomes between $250,000 to $500,000 to 40 percent; between $500,000 and $5 million, to 50 percent; between $5 million and $15 million, to 60 percent; and anything over $15 million, to 70 percent.

"And raise the ceiling on the portion of income subject to payroll taxes to $500,000."

The Obama Budget...

 

[georgephillip]

Gotta love the logic of this idea.

So Main Street is hurting, and screaming because the Banks will not lend them money.

Your solution, Tax the people who invest(LEND) money.

Foolish.

Where's the logic in rewarding those who caused the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression with tax cuts?

If Wall Street prefers to Frontload the Fed instead of loaning to Main Street, stop borrowing from the parasites and start taxing them.

Greed is a disease not a virtue.