Tax the rich, lose the rich

[hipeter924]

Somebody's got to pay the bill for having a civil society.

Naturally I'm sympathetic with those of you complaining that government is inefficient and bloated, but that doesn't change the fact that we live in a society where a very small percentage of the population owns the vast majority of this society's wealth.

So until the USA is willing to do something about income inequity, the fact is that the rich are going to have to pay most of the society's bills, too.

And if the "rich" want to leave for someplace that doesn't tax them?

Well then, so be it.

But we're damned fools to let them sell into our markets if they do.

But we have already proven that we're damned fools, haven't we?

Until we wake up to the fact that FREE TRADE is anything but free, this problem will continue to vex us, folks.

I would take many steps further...

If the rich and corporate CEO's are only willing to pay 3rd world wages, then they should LIVE in those 3rd world conditions their wages support. If they still want to live in America and enjoy all the benefits, then their corporate properties in America should be charged a fee for all those benefits...police, fire, sewers, potable water, roads, hospitals, etc.

I have agreed with that in a way but the way I see things:

1. All taxes should be voluntary* as in tax is a choice and we don't have to pay any.

2. Infrastructure should be divided into three areas: Commercial, Industrial and Residential infrastructure. Everyone is tolled or charged for the public infrastructure they use and if they don't want to be charged they develop their own infrastructure.

3. Pass laws ending this debt culture, make everyone be fiscally responsible (and help them to). Inflation because of extreme wealth is better than deflation or inflation from poverty and massive, ever rising debt.

4. We should set up a national organization of unions, corporations and all businesses, and make voluntary taxation conditional for businesses. The deal is that they give everyone jobs and good pay, in exchange for us not taxing them.

*The only tax that remains is the one that keeps our military going and the nation safe from hostile nations and dangerous people. Perhaps we can just combine them into one, and have a military police instead to cut costs, increase quality of protection and enforcement and end police corruption (the military can take up the police duties). Just try and break the law, when there are tanks or marines around.

 

[rightwinger]

Somebody's got to pay the bill for having a civil society.

Naturally I'm sympathetic with those of you complaining that government is inefficient and bloated, but that doesn't change the fact that we live in a society where a very small percentage of the population owns the vast majority of this society's wealth.

So until the USA is willing to do something about income inequity, the fact is that the rich are going to have to pay most of the society's bills, too.

And if the "rich" want to leave for someplace that doesn't tax them?

Well then, so be it.

But we're damned fools to let them sell into our markets if they do.

But we have already proven that we're damned fools, haven't we?

Until we wake up to the fact that FREE TRADE is anything but free, this problem will continue to vex us, folks.

I would take many steps further...

If the rich and corporate CEO's are only willing to pay 3rd world wages, then they should LIVE in those 3rd world conditions their wages support. If they still want to live in America and enjoy all the benefits, then their corporate properties in America should be charged a fee for all those benefits...police, fire, sewers, potable water, roads, hospitals, etc.

Best idea yet

The conservatives fail to recognize the benefits and wealth derived from our economic infrastructure, educated workforce, transportation and communications infrastructure as well as tax incentives and protections

 

[Wicked Jester]

"Not all budgetary dollars are created equal," said Alan Blinder, professor and co-director of Princeton University's Center for Economic Policy Studies, in a conference Wednesday morning. "Some have a lot of bang for the buck, and some have very little. The GDP increase per dollar of budgetary cost is in the range of 1.6, 1.7 for things like food stamps and unemployment benefits, and in the range of .35 for extending the Bush tax cuts. We could get some substantial job creation by simply reprogramming the $75 billion that would be saved over the next two years by not extending the upper-bracket Bush tax cuts and spending it instead on unemployment benefits, food stamps, and the like."

Blinder's economic advice supports the tax policy of President Obama and the Democrats, who would like to maintain tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans, while letting the cuts for those with incomes above $250,000 expire. Letting the tax cuts lapse is projected to trim approximately $675 billion from the deficit over 10 years, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

The GOP, by contrast, is aiming to extend the Bush tax cuts across the board, and has tried to block the billions in deficit spending to extend benefits to the long-term unemployed.

Blinder said that extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans would only exacerbate an ever-increasing income gap.

"One of the objections a lot of us raised back in 2001 when the Bush cuts were originally enacted was that they were...adding further post-tax income inequality to an economy that was already producing a lot of pre-tax inequality," he said. "I still feel that way. On the other hand, unemployment benefits and food stamps tend to go to people with much much lower incomes [who] need it a lot more, and you get substantially more GDP boost and job creation than if the same amount of money were spent extending tax cuts at the top."

After the U.S. has dug itself out of this recession, Blinder said, Congress should then make it a priority to start digging the country out of debt.

Alan Stuart Blinder (born October 14, 1945) is an American economist. He serves at Princeton University as the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs in the Economics Department, and as co-director of Princeton’s Center for Economic Policy Studies, which he founded in 1990. Since 1978 he has been a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is among the most influential economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc.

Tax Returns: A Comprehensive Assessment of the Bush Administration's Record on Cutting Taxes; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Yeah. Blinder is an idiot. No wonder you quote him.
How that man ever got a responsible position is beyond me.

Of course Blinder HAS to be an idiot, he doesn't agree with your Monica Lewinsky approach to sucking off the rich.

SO Rabbi, we have had a decade of Bush's tax cuts for the rich...WHERE ARE THE ******* JOBS???

WHERE IS THE ******* CONFIDENCE?.....Where is the confidence in this president, administration, and congress?......If there was confidence in these entities, business would have confidence to expand, to add and create jobs......Fact of the matter is, and it's being proven everyday, the american people and businesses have no confidence that this president, administration, and congress have a friggin' clue.

 

[Bern80]

Somebody's got to pay the bill for having a civil society.

Naturally I'm sympathetic with those of you complaining that government is inefficient and bloated, but that doesn't change the fact that we live in a society where a very small percentage of the population owns the vast majority of this society's wealth.

So until the USA is willing to do something about income inequity, the fact is that the rich are going to have to pay most of the society's bills, too.

Ed, what you aren't seeing is that WHY there is inequality is a major factor in whether it is a problem in the first place and thus something that needs fixing. If the reason there is income inequality is because, as I believe, that there is a rather small percentage of people motivated enough to do what it takes to attain wealth, then 'fixing' it means taking it away from those that figured out how to attain it and give it to those that couldn't or wouldn't figure it out.

The even worse news is that income equality in a free market or even semi-free market like ours, is not attainable in theory. So you raise maybe 50% of the poor and low middle class into making 6 figures a year, or whatever number you choose that would be considered wealthy. You won't have accomplished a thing. The market will respond to that simply by making all those people who now make 6 figures (or again whatever number you currently define as wealthy) the new middle class and we'll have this same discussion again about how there are so few triilionaires and too many 'poor' people making 6 figures. History shows that is the case. As standard of living for all rises what is considered poor today is a lot more than poor decades ago.

 

[boedicca]

There's a reason why the developing world are adopting low and flat taxes.

Complexity and high taxes breed government corruption, low growth, and high unemployment/underemployment. We are committing societal and economic suicide with our present system.

 

[skookerasbil]

Abraham Lincoln said it best!:

1)You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich

2) You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong

3) You can't bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift

4) You can't lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down

5) You can't (promote) the brotherhood of many by inciting class hatred

6) You can't build character and courage by taking away a mans initiative and independence

7) You can't help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves


These are the principles we must all remember when heading to the polls in november, and in the next presidential election.

The liberal/progressive agenda will destroy the very foundation of this country. That agenda must be attacked and destroyed.

LOL..................PWN!!!!!!


Lock the thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[skookerasbil]

Abraham Lincoln said it best!:

1)You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich

2) You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong

3) You can't bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift

4) You can't lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down

5) You can't (promote) the brotherhood of many by inciting class hatred

6) You can't build character and courage by taking away a mans initiative and independence

7) You can't help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves


These are the principles we must all remember when heading to the polls in november, and in the next presidential election.

The liberal/progressive agenda will destroy the very foundation of this country. That agenda must be attacked and destroyed.

Haven't we been through this a dozen times already?

Abe Lincoln never said that

 

[Wicked Jester]

Abraham Lincoln said it best!:

1)You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich

2) You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong

3) You can't bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift

4) You can't lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down

5) You can't (promote) the brotherhood of many by inciting class hatred

6) You can't build character and courage by taking away a mans initiative and independence

7) You can't help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves


These are the principles we must all remember when heading to the polls in november, and in the next presidential election.

The liberal/progressive agenda will destroy the very foundation of this country. That agenda must be attacked and destroyed.

LOL..................PWN!!!!!!


Lock the thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LMAO!

But that scoreboard should read: Kooks 3 Sane people 511

 

[skookerasbil]

 

[rightwinger]

There's a reason why the developing world are adopting low and flat taxes.

Complexity and high taxes breed government corruption, low growth, and high unemployment/underemployment. We are committing societal and economic suicide with our present system.

So you recommend we model our economy on third world developing nations?

No wonder everone laughs at rightwingnuts

 

[Bern80]

There's a reason why the developing world are adopting low and flat taxes.

Complexity and high taxes breed government corruption, low growth, and high unemployment/underemployment. We are committing societal and economic suicide with our present system.

So you recommend we model our economy on third world developing nations?

No wonder everone laughs at rightwingnuts

No we recommend we have a tax system that truly is fair......to EVERYONE.

 

[rightwinger]

There's a reason why the developing world are adopting low and flat taxes.

Complexity and high taxes breed government corruption, low growth, and high unemployment/underemployment. We are committing societal and economic suicide with our present system.

So you recommend we model our economy on third world developing nations?

No wonder everone laughs at rightwingnuts

No we recommend we have a tax system that truly is fair......to EVERYONE.

And yet....no major economic power in the world has such a tax structure

Are you guys serious? You want us to take on a tax structure that does not even work in the Third World?

 

[daveman]

So you recommend we model our economy on third world developing nations?

No wonder everone laughs at rightwingnuts

No we recommend we have a tax system that truly is fair......to EVERYONE.

And yet....no major economic power in the world has such a tax structure

Are you guys serious? You want us to take on a tax structure that does not even work in the Third World?

You want us to take on a structure like European nations'...and look how great they're doing.

 

[Londoner]

Government helps the interests which fund its elections. Those interests benefit from a global market system which requires a MASSIVE military investment.

The U.S. Maintains over 800 facilities around the world. 90% of the facilities are maintained in secret, like the ones in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. This secrecy allows the costs to be hidden. The context for maintaining the bases is "national security": Cold War > War on Terrorism. The real purpose is to protect the trade routes, raw materials, and vital markets necessary to global capitalism. Yes, Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore: read the label on your Walmart toaster. Guess where it comes from?

The American media never talks about the military costs of capitalism and its attendant "soft" empire [soft empire is when you don't directly manage countries, like the ol' Brits, but you advance commercial interests with dollar diplomacy and the comprehensive manipulation of foreign markets, sometimes using force, but usually by installing a brutal puppet regime]. There is no Democratic debate about America's unaffordable global obligations because FOX news turns issues of expanding/maintaining/protecting markets into issues of fighting evil. On the other hand, if the Government tries to unwind the anti-competitive insurance monopolies whose unchecked "administrative" costs have destroyed health care, you see an army of patriots dispatched to Town Hall meetings. The very corporations who benefit from a dynamic state sector have consolidated their control over the mass media, and now they agitate an astroturf populism to protect their interests.

Corporations seek not only cheaper raw materials, but cheaper labor. If a labor market in Alabama gets too expensive, than the corporation ships jobs to Taiwan. How does Alabama get those jobs back? By accepting lower wages and zero benefits, that is, it must Third World'ize itself to compete with the Third World. It doesn't stop there. Alabama must offer subsidies and tax breaks and environmental regulatory concessions > all of which come with a heavy cost that is paid by working people. The increased profits -- generated by decreased wages, subsidies, and friendlier regulations -- are sheltered by Capital Gains tax breaks. It's a brilliant upward transfer of wealth.

But all of this is besides the point. Globalization has lowered the wages of the workers and vastly increased the profits of corporations (who use those profits not to create better jobs, but to buy politicians and capture regulators). Compare wealth distribution from the 60s to today. It will blow your mind. America has created an obscenely wealthy owning and investment class, while depressing the earning power of middle class consumers (who are no longer solvent enough to buy things). You tried to make up the difference with fancy debt instruments (you tried to keep middle class consumption alive with credit cards and insane mortgages), but that failed miserably. Your problems are deeply structural: to benefit the owning and investment class, you got rid of the very middle class compensation structure necessary for consumption. And every time you give a tax break to the wealthy (hoping to get solid jobs back), you not only create massive deficits, but the wealthy "invest" the extra money in Washington to secure the regulatory conditions necessary to keep labor costs down. You are stuck in a pre-Globalized Reagan time-warp, under the illusion that profits always magically turn into innovation, competitive pricing, and jobs. Look at health care and energy, both of which have made massive profits over the past 30 years. Profits now operate inverse to results. A narrow sector gets rich beyond its wildest dreams, but health care gets worse, and better energy solutions ignored.

Point is: if one class makes all the money, than it has to pay all the taxes. The lower classes cannot pay their fair share if they don't have a share. You can't squeeze taxes from someone who doesn't have enough money for basic necessities like health care. The Reagan movement lowered middle class financial solvency (to the tune of massive wealth for the market winners, but with the consequence of undermining the consumption necessary for a health economy). And it squandered generational wealth creating a militarized global system which only benefits a small portion of the population, many of them offshore (unless you think all of BA and LLY's investors live in the USA). It's a big lie.

People. You've been Punk'd.

 

[rightwinger]

Point is: if one class makes all the money, than it has to pay all the taxes. The lower classes cannot pay their fair share if they don't have a share. You can't squeeze money from someone you are not paying well enough to buy health care. The Reagan movement lowered their financial solvency (to the tune of massive wealth for the market winners). And it squandered generational wealth creating a militarized global system which only benefits a small portion of the population, many of them offshore (unless you think all of BA and LLY's investors live in the USA). It's a big lie.

You want to hog all the money....you can hog all the taxes

 

[Bern80]

So you recommend we model our economy on third world developing nations?

No wonder everone laughs at rightwingnuts

No we recommend we have a tax system that truly is fair......to EVERYONE.

And yet....no major economic power in the world has such a tax structure

Are you guys serious? You want us to take on a tax structure that does not even work in the Third World?

Where is your evidence that it doesn't work? Show us something that would indicate that that reason these countries remain third world is due to their tax structure.

if you're going to argue against something like the fair tax at least use an argument that actually has some basis in reality behind it.

You want to hog all the money....you can hog all the taxes

Are you under some delusion that some time long ago, we just set up a giant stack of money in the middle of America and said 'here have it everyone, may the fastest hands win'? Hogging all the money? What completely bullshit nonsensical argument. Some people have made themselves better at accumulating money than others. Just because they figured it out your too much of lazy government sucking leech to figure out yourself doesn't mean it's fair for them to have to pay more taxes. You WANT and unfair system, not a truly fair one. You just don't have the balls to admit it.

 

[Flopper]

Tax the poor and give them incentive to get rich right? Or we could just tax no one and do away with government.

 

[onecut39]

I, for one, feel sorry for the wealthy. They do so much for this country and ask for so little in return. I would like to continue giving them their tax cut, but we just can't afford it this year.
You see, the Tea Party reminded me that we are running this massive deficit and we really need to cut back on things that add to the defecit. Since this tax cut has added $2 Trillion we need to cut it out temporarily until we are on better financial footing.

I promise that once the wealthy stop sending our jobs overseas, and once that $13 trillion in debt is paid off.....they can have their tax cut back

Seems fair

Indeed it does!!

 

[Bern80]

I, for one, feel sorry for the wealthy. They do so much for this country and ask for so little in return. I would like to continue giving them their tax cut, but we just can't afford it this year.
You see, the Tea Party reminded me that we are running this massive deficit and we really need to cut back on things that add to the defecit. Since this tax cut has added $2 Trillion we need to cut it out temporarily until we are on better financial footing.

I promise that once the wealthy stop sending our jobs overseas, and once that $13 trillion in debt is paid off.....they can have their tax cut back

Seems fair

Indeed it does!!

Can you explain how that would meet the definition of fair?

With all the whiners and people essentially screaming 'YEAH, GET 'EM. GET THE RICH!' It should come as no wonder why there is a widening gap between rich and poor and why so few attain financial independence. You want things to be different. You want to have more money and some of you even seem to want certain people to have less money (what benefit to society that would be, I'm not sure). Some of you think it's fair that the rich pay more taxes than the poor (what definition of fair that fits I'm not sure). You all want change of some type. But it's someone elses's job to bring about the change. You shouldn't have to do shit, should you. You want more money but you'll be damned if your the one that has to muster the effort to get it. You people make me ******* sick.

 

[CMike]

So you recommend we model our economy on third world developing nations?

No wonder everone laughs at rightwingnuts

No we recommend we have a tax system that truly is fair......to EVERYONE.

And yet....no major economic power in the world has such a tax structure

Are you guys serious? You want us to take on a tax structure that does not even work in the Third World?

Yeah...Spain and the rest of Europe are great examples for economic disaster.