And ALL the Cons Running for POTUS Want the Rich to Pay Even LESS!

I understand if you are wealthy and greedy. That is fairly simple to understand. I don't admire it but I understand their malady. What is harder to understand is those middle class people that apologize for them. What kind of sickness is that?

 

By your reckoning, how much of a percentage of their money should the wealthy be allowed to keep? Should the poor and the middle class be allowed to keep more than the rich, percentage-wise? Or, because they are less successful and therefore contribute less to the economy, should they be allowed to keep less?

 

I think that a high income is simply a high income. It doesn't automatically follow that one who has a high income has worked harder or has contributed more to the economy or is more deserving of it than one with a middle class or lower income, although that seems to be a matter of faith for the RW. Relative wealth is not a measure of relative virtue or morality, or hard work. Check out my TR post. I'm liking that man's views on this issue more and more as the months pass.

 

I am a proponent of a no deduction, no loophole, no subsidy tax system.You get your rate and that is the rate you pay. So simple a caveman (or typical American) can do it.

However, the video is really not as dramatic as it might seem. They are talking about Billionaires so the math is pretty easy. There are 397 Billionaires. Their combined Net Worth is 1.525 Trillion dollars. So, the story makes a big deal of 30% in 1995 (Clinton) vs 18% Now (Obama). But how much difference total in money is that for these billionaires?

If we just use the 1.525 trillion dollar combined net worth and count that as their income (whether it was earned over 1 year or 40) for simplicity sake...30% of that 1.525 trillion is 457 billion and 18% of that 1.525 trillion is 274 billion. The difference in taxing them at the 2 different rates...183 Billion Dollars. Total. Not per year, but total.

Now, sure, it would be good to have that 183 billion dollars paid instead of not paid through loopholes and such...but we just hit $15 Trillion in total debt. Even if we taxed these billionaires at 100% and took their entire 1.525 trillion from them, our debt would still be $13.5 Trillion.

So, while Tax The Rich makes for good populist rhetoric, the dollars to solve our problems don't really add up.

If you want to check my math...

http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/#p_1_s_arank_All industries_All states_All categories_

 

There is no one solution. A graduated income tax that that requires that the rich pay more percentage-wise than the middle class and the poor is a single component. I think that the structure that existed under the Socialist Eisenhower (adjusted for inflation of course) would work just fine. But then I'm pretty Red. As apparently was Ike at least in this respect.

 

My opinion is that the poor and middle-class should be allowed to keep more than the rich... this is not exactly a new concept though... and something you apparently disagree with?

 

I agree it is a complicated problem that requires multiple solutions. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of talk about any other solutions because anything else that really beings to solve the problem is a really hard choice. Taxing the rich is an easy target (and makes for great political rhetoric) but that can't solve our current problems. Just like the Ever Renewing Temporary Tax Cuts...eliminating them for the rich (which is the only thing ever discussed) saves 70 billion a year. Tax The Rich! But that still leaves well over 300 billion a year worth of those tax cuts in the budget. Shhhhhhh!

And talk about hard choices, Ike would be a toughie indeed. In order to get to his levels of revenue and spending (relative to inflation/GDP), we would have to increase tax revenue by 360 billion and would then still have to cut spending by 900 billion. Yearly. That would be equivalent to eliminating the Bush/Obama tax cuts for everyone and still cutting almost 900 billion in spending from the budget. And Our Dear Leaders can't come up with 150 billion combined per year in tax revenue and spending cuts.

I am unsure that the American people would be willing to make a sacrifice like that these days anyway even if the result of not doing it is a default. And I know our politicians would never have the guts to ask us to make that kind of sacrifice.

If anyone wants to check the math, this site has all the President's data for revenue and spending as a percentage of their GDP:
http://federal-budget.findthebest.com/d/d/Dwight-D.-Eisenhower
It's easy to take their percentages and apply it to our current GDP of 14.5 trillion and subtract that from what we are spending and taxing today.

 

Regardless of the fairness, the responsibility, the debt to society any of have wealthy or poor, what I am trying to understand is how anyone can sit back and defend the very people taking advantage of the rest of us. The wealthy I have cited clearly have enough power and influence to "legally" steal from the majority of the people in this country. They have paid off congressmen with legal campaign donations, lobbied legally to slant legislation that favors them, and they have a revolving door of congressmen that are either their employees or supposed to be our representatives. If you'll notice, I kept saying legally. With a wink and a nod, they probably stay within the letter of the law but of course you have to turn a blind eye and plug your ears and stuff your mouth with cotton to actually believe that this is what was intended by the people that created this country. And that is the issue. What actually makes anyone that isn't profiting from this corrupt system think they should be defending it? It clearly isn't what was intended nor is it benefiting but a tiny few in society so why would anyone defend it?

 

I don't defend it. I hate rich people as much as the next guy. But I also know that the 397 billionaires in the video who are paying 12% less in taxes than they did 15 years ago is, by a huge margin, not our biggest fiscal problem.

 

I don't think that I could ever say that I hate rich people. I know too many nice ones. What I do hate is those with so much influence and power over our political system that they are damaging the very democratic nature that this country was founded on by taking advantage of the freedoms and liberties this country affords it's people to line their own pockets out of selfish greed. But again, people like that have always existed in one form or another throughout history and they are able to succeed for a while and then they either anger enough people to topple them or they overplay their own hand and begin to feed on each other. Who cares how they eventually end up. My real interest is in those that defend them and are most certainly being victimized along with the rest of us but for some reason can't see it. Is that it? They simply can't see it? If so, what blinds them to their own fate while the rest of us see exactly what is happening? Makes you wonder. I don't get to question the rich in this forum but I do get to question those that defend the rich to their own detriment.

 

I've always wondered how we define "rich". For some, "rich" is anyone making over, say, $35,000 per year. For others, "rich" is anyone making over, say, $100,000 per year. For others, well, you see where this is going...

I define "rich" as anyone making more than me.

 

Seems like a good definition.

 

That's because you're rich.

I think most people know the tax system in this country is completely fraudulent; bought and paid for, used for purposes that a revenue system should never be used for, etc. I would assume the only people who would defend it are those that benefit from it.

 

And that is the curious part. There are plenty of people here that defend the wealthy when it is the wealthy, and I'm speaking generally of course, that are the people taking advantage of the system and the vast majority of us as well. The tax system is so out of whack because of all of the carve outs that have made it like a giant boat with holes. A boat works fine as long as you have a uniform consistent hull that keeps water out. Once you start punching holes in it on or near the waterline, it becomes less and less reliable. That is exactly what our tax system has become. The revenue that should be counted on to keep us afloat is given away to those that can influence the system in their favor. The result, as anyone can see, is that the ship is sinking. The part I can't figure is why there is this group standing on deck cheering for more holes in the ship's hull, the same ship they are counting on to keep them out of the water especially because land in nowhere in sight.

 

Like I said, I think the whole system is screwed up. And I think those 400 billionaires are only part of the problem with the system.

For example, I am a 66%er (which by most any definition would be middle class) with no fancy deductions over the ones you get for being alive and having dependents. My effective income tax rate last year was: 5.4%. So, compared to that, those billionaires still paid 3.33 times the effective rate I did because their effective rate was 18% according to the video.

If we used the actual marginal rates, the billionaires would have only paid 2.33 times the rate I would have...my marginal: 15%, their marginal: 35%. Which, if I understand the term properly, would make the theoretical marginal rates actually less 'progressive' than the actual effective rates.

How about that for a system that is convoluted across the board.

 

What if we just go back to not having an income tax and cut federal spending to the bone?

 

What would you cut? I think it would have to be just about everything.

 

Personally, I think you would have a revolution.

 

We would just move. It's possible to reach a point at which it's simply not worth hanging around. Life is too short.

 

You are correct. Budget was 3.6 trillion. Revenues are 2.6 trillion. Deficit is 1 trillion. You do some basic math on those numbers and you would end up with a federal budget of 0. And we need several hundred billion dollars a year just to service the current debt at today's low interest rates (which would not stay low).