What is a fair tax rate?

[bripat9643]

You want a VAT tax on top of all the other taxes?!?!

Two words.......Fuck You

Ye, because I am a fiscal conservative.

I guess you are left wing?

Is "fiscal conservative" a euphemism for "communist?"

You're about as "fiscally conservative" as Pol Pot.

 

[bripat9643]

What is a fair tax rate?

A fair rate would be one where everybody pays either the exact same percentage or the exact same actual dollar amount.
Pick one.

As mentioned - that would be about 30%.

As a dollar rate it's difficult to calculate, but if you are on a middle income, perhaps it would be 20% more than you pay now.

Why is 30% "fair?" Why is paying more than you pay now "fair?"

 

[Toro]

It is but you must spell it out so they cannot dance and parse.. 50% of Americans pay ZERO FEDERAL INCOME TAX. we have to carry these leeches around on our backs.

That is an idiotic statement.

Isn't it amazing that so many poters think 10% - 15% is enough to run a government - and yet can not find a single place and time where it has ever worked.

Weird.

It worked throughout the 19th century.

Comparing the 19th century economy and infrastructure to the 21st. How amusing.

I'm not comparing anything. He said we can not find a single place or time when it has ever worked. Per capita GDP growth in the US for the second half of the 19th century was about what it was during the 20th century. It was a little lower in the first half. But nonetheless, if you are looking for another time, clearly it exists.

 

[Obamanation]

Obamanation -

In fact, only about 8% of Americans pay neither federal income tax nor payroll tax, because they are unemployed, are students, or are disabled.

Americans are not moochers - CNN.com

Sai - you can add all the caveats you want --- over 47% of US citizens pay ZERO dollars in federal income tax!!!! That is a FACT!

Not one you like I'm sure -- none of us like it! most of us wish EVERYONE had to pay their fair share. For libs that mens screw the rich guy --- for conservatives it mean EVERYBODY...

Now who is being dishonest?

 

[bripat9643]

A fair rate would be one where everybody pays either the exact same percentage or the exact same actual dollar amount.
Pick one.

That'd be zero.

But then politicians and bureaucrats would actually have to exercise fiscal restraint, and we just won't have any of that.

Wow...another person who does not use or want sewerage, roads, street lighting, police, immigration & customs services or schools.

Who knew so many Americans lived in caves?

Everything you listed aside from Immigration and Customs is a function of local government and could be paid for with about 5% of our GDP. The cost of the Immigration and Customs "service" is trivial.

Also, there's no reason the government has to provide education, so that brings the total cost down to about 2% of GDP. It also doesn't even need to provide roads, sewage or street lighting. These have all been provided by private corporations in the past.

so where's the requirement for a tax of 30% coming from?

 

[bripat9643]

Who cares???

10% is plenty of money to run the gov't and protect the people... Everything else is just poorly spent money. What does the gov't do better than the private sector?

Unfortunately no country in the world has ever been foolih enough to try the idea, and I think most of us undertand why not.

The US would be bankrupt within a month.

Actually, every country in the world survived on less revenue than that before WW II. Other than socialist schemes to redistribute wealth, there's no conceivable reason why it would work.

 

[bripat9643]

Obamanation -

The only way that would in any be feasible would be if either the military, healthcare, education or welfare systems were abandoned outright. Possibly more than one of those would need to be closed, I suspect.

I can imagine how great it would look on the TV news if we had eighty-year-old Grandmas and Autistic children starving in the streets because you wanted that second home in the Hamptons.

You mean all those nice liberals would let their 80-year-old grandmothers and Autistic children starve? That's a terrible thing to say about liberals!

I don't know how things in your family are, but my 86 year old mother is a rich woman. She's worth well into the 7 figure range.

 

[bripat9643]

Government spending as a percentage of GDP is the same now as when Reagan was in office....23%.

Wrong.

But since the financial crisis in 2008, revenues as a share of GDP have hit 60-year lows, coming in at around 15%. And yet the Republicans signed the Grover Norquist "tax pledge" not to raise taxes.

Only gullible numskulls believe it's all due to declines in revenue.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Flat tax across the board...

...will convert our democracy into a plutocracy in less than a generation.

 

[bripat9643]

Isn't it amazing that so many poters think 10% - 15% is enough to run a government - and yet can not find a single place and time where it has ever worked.

Weird.

Before WW I, the federal government ran on 3% of our GDP.

You're totally ignorant of history. Apparently you believe bloated welfare states have been around since the dark ages.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Government spending as a percentage of GDP is the same now as when Reagan was in office....23%.

Wrong.

But since the financial crisis in 2008, revenues as a share of GDP have hit 60-year lows, coming in at around 15%. And yet the Republicans signed the Grover Norquist "tax pledge" not to raise taxes.

Only gullible numskulls believe it's all due to declines in revenue.

Only numbskull's believe a flat tax is the panacea for all of our economic ills.

 

[bripat9643]

Flat tax across the board...

...will convert our democracy into a plutocracy in less than a generation.

All the term "plutocracy" means in practice is that people are allowed to keep what they earn, and some become rich doing so.

 

[spectrumc01]

Isn't it amazing that so many poters think 10% - 15% is enough to run a government - and yet can not find a single place and time where it has ever worked.

Weird.

Before WW I, the federal government ran on 3% of our GDP.

You're totally ignorant of history. Apparently you believe bloated welfare states have been around since the dark ages.

look at the salaries of our elected, look at their pensions. There was a time when the teachers were mostly women, and their husbands were the elected. Every time they teachers asked for something they got it. It started in small government, cronyism, and progressed further. Our government spending is out of control because congress is out of control. Didn't they just pass a bill that says they can't use insider trading anymore. Yet we try to blame the whole mess on one guy.

 

[bripat9643]

The facts are that whatever is published for tax rates is a joke. When a bastard can inheirit money, invest it in equities or municipal bonds and end up paying 14% on $14 million of earnings when my wife and I pay 16% on about $80,000 is some kind of weird scam. Add to that our local and state taxes which would be a pittance for a rich person and we...WE are the ones paying the bills.

Yet, you keep voting in the same cock suckers who are always sticking it too you.

BTW, 14% of 14 million is almost $2 million. Why should anyone pay that much to the government in taxes? Do they get $2 million worth of services?

 

[Wry Catcher]

Flat tax across the board...

...will convert our democracy into a plutocracy in less than a generation.

All the term "plutocracy" means in practice is that people are allowed to keep what they earn, and some become rich doing so.

Really? Is that what you 'think'?

 

[bripat9643]

Because the nature of all progressive tax systems is that the wealthier pay a slightly higher percentage of their income - which translates into a very significant amount per capita in actual dollars.

Thus flattening the tax base will actually mean the tax of the average income bracket needs to rise.

It works in transitioning economies only because the people at the bottom have lived in such astonishing poverty that they drag the average income down.

The flat tax works everywhere it's tried. All taxes where flat taxes in the 19th Century.

The progressive tax on income is a purely Marxian invention.

For the US government to function as it does now, a flat tax rate might average out at around 30%, I suspect.

It would actually require a tax rate of about 23%. That includes exempting anyone below the poverty line.

That alone would tip another million Americans into poverty.

Anyone below the poverty line wouldn't pay the tax, so how would it tip anyone into poverty? It would actually cause the economy to boom and thereby eliminate poverty by making everyone wealthier.

 

[bripat9643]

BTW an across-the-board VAT is far more regressive than an across-the-board flat tax.

It is, but it is also so essential that I believe the US i now the only develped country without one.

That bite from the shadow economy is worth BILLIONS.

The GOP should be pushing it for all they're worth.

Since the U.S. has been doing fine without it for years, it's obviously not essential. The VAT is a hidden tax, which is why looters and moochers like you love it so much.

 

[bripat9643]

You can't run the government on 10% and be the worlds policeman with defense consuming 6-7% of GDP. Unfortunately many Republicans irrationally want to have it both ways. Say what you will about Ron Paul but at least he is honest.

Defense spending only consumes about 3% of GDP, so your concerns are groundless.

 

[bripat9643]

I find it interesting that many Libertarians who so value the founding fathers completely ignore that they specifically had the debate about the value of public education and the role of government such as Federal land grant schools.

Our founding fathers were not as convinced as to the role of private markets as today's libertarians

What's so surprising about that? the Founding Fathers weren't perfect libertarians. The term isn't a synonym for "whatever the Founding Fathers believed."

Public education is a disaster. The Founding Fathers weren't all opposed to it only because they had not yet seen it in action.

 

[bripat9643]

You want a VAT tax on top of all the other taxes?!?!

Two words.......Fuck You

I agree 100%.

One thing is clear, Saigon's greed for more of the taxpayer's money is insatiable.