47% of Tea Party supports raising taxes on incomes >$250k

[Anarchist420]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/88529.html:

"Keep Your Government Hands off my Medicare"
That’s what was seen on a sign during the debates over the healthcare bill at an anti-Obamacare rally. Now, in a recent McClatchy-Marist poll, 70 percent of those who identify with the Tea Party oppose cutting Medicare and Medicaid to deal with the federal budget deficit. Here are two other questions with disturbing answers from Tea Partiers.
Do you support or oppose doing each of the following to deal with the federal budget deficit: Increase taxes on income over 250,000 dollars? Only 53 percent opposed this. Do you support or oppose doing each of the following to deal with the federal budget deficit: Reduce military spending? Only 32 percent supported this. Oh, and a majority approved of the job Republicans are doing in Congress. And here’s a surprise, 18 percent of Tea Partiers have a favorable impression of President Obama. That’s almost as funny as the over 50 percent that claim in other polls to have a favorable impression of George W. Bush"

Does this make anyone else afraid of the future? Don't these idiot assholes realize that LBJ, who was a fucking DEMOCRAT, created medicare?

 

[LegendKiller]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/88529.html:

Does this make anyone else afraid of the future? Don't these idiot assholes realize that LBJ, who was a fucking DEMOCRAT, created medicare?

No, it makes me hopeful for the future that we realize we are a country, not an anarchy and it is in the best interest of our country to promote some type of healthcare for all.

Unfortunately, you wouldn't have any idea of that since you are still on your parents healthcare and probably still live in their basement.

Ahh, to be young dumb and full of shit.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

404 citation links FTW!

 

[Zebo]

Taxes are pretty high on earned income already. What needs to be addressed is passive, cap gains, dividends which has no employment taxes attached to it AND is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living.

Most people miss this, because they work and seem overtaxed. And they are. That's how modern Republicans keeps the faithful.

What we should be taxing higher is leisure class making billions off displacing American labor for cheap labor. We don't though. Jobs and other investors pay themselves a token salary of $1 and get their billions out at 15% flat no employment taxes ss/med/ue etc. I paid more than 15% on my income working at a hardware store in college. Ridiculous.

 

[KB]

They sound just like all the other hypocrits out there. "Cut spending! But only cut spending on your programs, not ours".

Spending needs to be cut on almost all programs, particularly the two biggest ones, military and social security/medicare.

 

[brencat]

Taxes are pretty high on earned income already. What needs to be addressed is passive, cap gains, dividends which has no employment taxes attached to it AND is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living.

Most people miss this, because they work and seem overtaxed. And they are.

What we should be taxing higher is leisure class making billions off displacing American labor for cheap labor. We don't though. Jobs and other investors pay themselves a token salary of $1 and get their billions out at 15% flat no employment taxes ss/med/ue etc. I paid more than 15% on my income working at a hardware store in college. Ridiculous.

Excellent post. And I'm a Republican by the way but even I recognize and have advocated in this forum for higher capital gains taxes and/or a phase out of the 15% favorable treatment beyond some reasonably high level of total income from all sources.

I will also reiterate my objection to the $250k threshold as the point where one is 'rich' and should be paying more taxes however. Try living in NJ, NY, CT, or CA and paying the ridiculous property and income taxes in these states. I'm all in favor of 5-6 additional marginal brackets at the truly high end however that will affect the top 0.1% more...the difference between the top 2% income level and the top sub 1% I'm targeting is massive.

 

[her209]

Taxes are pretty high on earned income already. What needs to be addressed is passive, cap gains, dividends which has no employment taxes attached to it AND is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living.

Most people miss this, because they work and seem overtaxed. And they are. That's how modern Republicans keeps the faithful.

What we should be taxing higher is leisure class making billions off displacing American labor for cheap labor. We don't though. Jobs and other investors pay themselves a token salary of $1 and get their billions out at 15% flat no employment taxes ss/med/ue etc. I paid more than 15% on my income working at a hardware store in college. Ridiculous.

Excellent post. And I'm a Republican by the way but even I recognize and have advocated in this forum for higher capital gains taxes and/or a phase out of the 15% favorable treatment beyond some reasonably high level of total income from all sources.

I will also reiterate my objection to the $250k threshold as the point where one is 'rich' and should be paying more taxes however. Try living in NJ, NY, CT, or CA and paying the ridiculous property and income taxes in these states. I'm all in favor of 5-6 additional marginal brackets at the truly high end however that will affect the top 0.1% more...the difference between the top 2% income level and the top sub 1% I'm targeting is massive.

BUT BUT BUT if you tax the investors they'll just go invest offshore.

 

[Anarchist420]

They sound just like all the other hypocrits out there. "Cut spending! But only cut spending on your programs, not ours".

Spending needs to be cut on almost all programs, particularly the two biggest ones, military and social security/medicare.

:thumbsup:

Taxes are pretty high on earned income already. What needs to be addressed is passive, cap gains, dividends which has no employment taxes attached to it AND is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living.

Most people miss this, because they work and seem overtaxed. And they are. That's how modern Republicans keeps the faithful.

What we should be taxing higher is leisure class making billions off displacing American labor for cheap labor. We don't though. Jobs and other investors pay themselves a token salary of $1 and get their billions out at 15% flat no employment taxes ss/med/ue etc. I paid more than 15% on my income working at a hardware store in college. Ridiculous.

I agree that it's not right that some income is treated more fairly than others, but they have a right to keep their income just like everyone else. Perhaps we should slash spending and tax everyone at a single marginal rate of 15% and no other taxes, although taxation, especially of income, is never good. Or they could raise the top marginal rate to 28% and not give a special rate for CG, although that has drawbacks as well.

Excellent post. And I'm a Republican by the way but even I recognize and have advocated in this forum for higher capital gains taxes and/or a phase out of the 15% favorable treatment beyond some reasonably high level of total income from all sources.

I will also reiterate my objection to the $250k threshold as the point where one is 'rich' and should be paying more taxes however. Try living in NJ, NY, CT, or CA and paying the ridiculous property and income taxes in these states. I'm all in favor of 5-6 additional marginal brackets at the truly high end however that will affect the top 0.1% more...the difference between the top 2% income level and the top sub 1% I'm targeting is massive.

Then investors won't invest in the U.S. anymore. We already have Sarbanes-Oxley.

 

[brencat]

:Then investors won't invest in the U.S. anymore. We already have Sarbanes-Oxley.

Absolute nonsense. We still have the most stable political and economic environment anywhere in the world, 2 prerequisites for attracting and retaining capital.

 

[3chordcharlie]

BUT BUT BUT if you tax the investors they'll just go invest offshore.

So you tax domestication of foreign profits, just like should be done now. Domestic capital chasing cheap foreign labor is a major driving force behind the erosion of Western standards of living.

With substantially all profits being re-domesticated, it also does little to improve the lot of the foreign countries providing the labor.

 

[Slew Foot]

Taxes are pretty high on earned income already. What needs to be addressed is passive, cap gains, dividends which has no employment taxes attached to it AND is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living.

Most people miss this, because they work and seem overtaxed. And they are. That's how modern Republicans keeps the faithful.

What we should be taxing higher is leisure class making billions off displacing American labor for cheap labor. We don't though. Jobs and other investors pay themselves a token salary of $1 and get their billions out at 15% flat no employment taxes ss/med/ue etc. I paid more than 15% on my income working at a hardware store in college. Ridiculous.

This.:thumbsup:

There's no reason capngains shouldn't be taxed as regular income

 

[child of wonder]

It would be great if the government could stop spending and wasting so much money altogether, simplify our tax code, and use the savings to pay off the debt. Once that's done, lower taxes on everyone.

I'm consistently amazed that no matter how much money any level of government takes in, they always find a way to run a deficit.

 

[Ape]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/88529.html:

Does this make anyone else afraid of the future? Don't these idiot assholes realize that LBJ, who was a fucking DEMOCRAT, created medicare?

Get this when you click on link for the poll.

Not Found

The requested URL /Question Wording: Do you support or oppose doing each of the following to deal with the federal budget deficit: Increase taxes on income over 250,000 dollars was not found on this server.

Seems bogus to me.

 

[piasabird]

We can just raise your taxes too. I dont know many people that make that much money. I can not name anyone that I know that makes anywhere near that much money. So how much good will this do?

 

[piasabird]

How about a $1.00 tax on every stock transaction?

 

[the DRIZZLE]

Excellent post. And I'm a Republican by the way but even I recognize and have advocated in this forum for higher capital gains taxes and/or a phase out of the 15% favorable treatment beyond some reasonably high level of total income from all sources.

I will also reiterate my objection to the $250k threshold as the point where one is 'rich' and should be paying more taxes however. Try living in NJ, NY, CT, or CA and paying the ridiculous property and income taxes in these states. I'm all in favor of 5-6 additional marginal brackets at the truly high end however that will affect the top 0.1% more...the difference between the top 2% income level and the top sub 1% I'm targeting is massive.

I agree with you and Zebo, but if you fixed the capital gains problem you wouldn't need to make the income tax more progressive. That is the largest reason for the low tax rates of the top 0.1%. If you just taxed capital gains the same rate as income you would literally double the effective tax rate on these people.

 

[senseamp]

Useful idiots going to be put in their place if they become less useful for the GOP elites.

 

[Craig234]

I agree with you and Zebo, but if you fixed the capital gains problem you wouldn't need to make the income tax more progressive. That is the largest reason for the low tax rates of the top 0.1%. If you just taxed capital gains the same rate as income you would literally double the effective tax rate on these people.

I suspect you might be right; conversely, this is why the rich might like the debate to be about the income tax rate, which they might 'lose' on, if cap gains remain undertaxed.

The income tax rate becomes somewhat useful as a propaganda tool - if you got a nickel for every post here about 'the rich pay all the income tax', it'd trigger that top bracket.

 

[Craig234]

How about a $1.00 tax on every stock transaction?

Actually, a small (1 cent?) tax on each of the stock trades might have a big benefit, not affecting normal traders, but helping to counter the computer trading that the biggest firms now do, which make up 70% of all trades, and seem to do nothing to really 'help the economy' but do extract wealth from others.

 

[blackangst1]

For you who think the long term cap gains should be taxed as ordinary income...Im assuming you would apply that to the 10% and 15% ordinary income bracket that currently pays 0 in capital gains taxes?

 

[shira]

For you who think the long term cap gains should be taxed as ordinary income...Im assuming you would apply that to the 10% and 15% ordinary income bracket that currently pays 0 in capital gains taxes?

If I had to guess, the capital gains earned by those in the 10% and 15% income tax brackets is a vanishingly-small fraction of all capital gains. That being the case, I doubt that anyone would object to excluding from taxation any long term capital gains that didn't push taxable income above the 25% tax threshold.

Thus, if a married couple has $68,000 of taxable income (excluding LTCG), then the first $1000 of LTCG (and Qualified Dividends) would be tax free (since the threshold for the 25% bracket for 2011 is $69,000), but all additional LTCG and Qualified Dividends would be treated as ordinary income and taxed accordingly.

 

[blackangst1]

If I had to guess, the capital gains earned by those in the 10% and 15% income tax brackets is a vanishingly-small fraction of all capital gains. That being the case, I doubt that anyone would object to excluding from taxation any long term capital gains that didn't push taxable income above the 25% tax threshold.

Thus, if a married couple has $68,000 of taxable income (excluding LTCG), then the first $1000 of LTCG (and Qualified Dividends) would be tax free (since the threshold for the 25% bracket for 2011 is $69,000), but all additional LTCG and Qualified Dividends would be treated as ordinary income and taxed accordingly.

I dont know about vanishing. Although capital gains for those in the 10 and 15% tax bracket is different than those in the 38% bracket (home sales vs investment income).

 

[fskimospy]

It would be great if the government could stop spending and wasting so much money altogether, simplify our tax code, and use the savings to pay off the debt. Once that's done, lower taxes on everyone.

I'm consistently amazed that no matter how much money any level of government takes in, they always find a way to run a deficit.

Great plan, now give us the details.

 

[shira]

It would be great if the government could stop spending and wasting so much money altogether, simplify our tax code, and use the savings to pay off the debt. Once that's done, lower taxes on everyone.

I'm consistently amazed that no matter how much money any level of government takes in, they always find a way to run a deficit.

So your claim is that a large proportion of our deficit is caused by waste? Why don't you point us to a scholarly article that supports this wild claim?

 

[Fern]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/88529.html:

"Keep Your Government Hands off my Medicare"
That’s what was seen on a sign during the debates over the healthcare bill at an anti-Obamacare rally. Now, in a recent McClatchy-Marist poll, 70 percent of those who identify with the Tea Party oppose cutting Medicare and Medicaid to deal with the federal budget deficit.

Here are two other questions with disturbing answers from Tea Partiers.

1. Do you support or oppose doing each of the following to deal with the federal budget deficit: Increase taxes on income over 250,000 dollars? Only 53 percent opposed this.

2. Do you support or oppose doing each of the following to deal with the federal budget deficit: Reduce military spending? Only 32 percent supported this.

Does this make anyone else afraid of the future? Don't these idiot assholes realize that LBJ, who was a fucking DEMOCRAT, created medicare?

I see nothing unusual or idiotic here.

People who have been working all their life and paying into SS and Medicare shouldn't be expected to approve of their benefits now being cut. Why would they, they've paid for those. Just manage the programs better. You don't think these people read about scams/fraud in Medicare?

I'm also not surprised that some are OK with a tax increase on upper income types. Heck, I'm a conservative and have gone on record that I could go along with a modest increase of a few %. (And I strongly oppose the Carried Interest Provision for fund managers.)

Nor am I surpised that some could go along with a cut to our defense budget. I could go along with reasonable cuts. In bad economic times things must be cut. Also, and particularly, the war in Afganistan has gone on for too long and I am not into nation building.

The TEA Party people are about being fiscally conservative, both personally and politically. So I see no reason any of these responses are unexpected.

Fern