86M Workers Sustain 148M Benefit Takers

[soccerballtux]

Gawd. How are America's most affluent burdened by lower tax rates & much higher share of national income than 35 years ago? How does that compare to the burden of radically reduced income share and regressive consumption taxes that strongly affect median families?

Income tax burden follows income, until we get to the tippytop of the heap, where it simply falls away to the rates that Mitt pays.

Taxes are sacrifice for the common good. That sacrifice is significant at median income levels, because it affects lifestyle rather strongly. It doesn't really matter what form those taxes take, because they all cut into the bottom line just the same.

I've asked the question many times, but the usual shallow thinkers manage to rave around it- What's the difference in lifestyle paying 15% or 50% on incomes measured in tens or hundreds of millions? Billions?

I suggest that there is none. Really. The difference doesn't lie there, but rather somewhere else, in the power relationships of society, the power to run the lives of many, many other people. That's the entire point of enormous wealth, which is really very much at odds with egalitarian democracy in a constitutional republic. It's increasingly at odds with the idea of meritocracy, as well, given that it's heritable & fundamentally oligarchical, conveying enormous advantage to people who haven't earned them at all.

Taxing rich people isn't going to work. We have to reign in government spending, tarrif imports, and give all graduates a green card so we can build a middle class.

 

[Jhhnn]

As long as you're making stupid shit up, why not pin the JFK assassination on me too?



Just more stupid shit, based on the other stupid shit that pours from your mouth. Please, find me a quote where I defend Republican spending, or even claimed that Republicans weren't spenders.

I'll be waiting, douchebag.

You did contrast "the left has no solution but the continually failed "solution" of increased government spending" with what Repubs want, did you not?

I merely pointed out the exclusive attribution to be unfair, and showed why. Apparently you now agree, but seem to hate the fact that it kills the premise of your argument.

...

...

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While I'm waiting for this douchebag to find some evidence of the stupid shit he pulled from his ass...


Republicans don't spend money thinking it will end up in the pockets of anyone but their connected buddies. Democrats are stupid enough to believe their own lies about increased government spending trickling down.

Both sides are idiots who continue to play the game the same way they always have, thinking somehow their side will eventually win.

Out of the box thinking is when you consider driving the cost of goods down to nothing as Jaskalas posited, rather than constantly trying to constantly fight the inevitable.

So you think that we can eschew the market system, that goods will appear w/o profit motive for the suppliers? They kinda did that in the early part of the Depression wrt farm production. Prices fell so low that crops were left to rot even as many, many people went hungry. The contraction of credit & dearth of currency forced many to barter- it doesn't matter how cheap it is if you don't have the money to buy it. Or maybe the real answer lies in the other direction, raising income to the point where it's all nearly as cheap in a relative manner?

Automation will continue. You can't stop progress now matter how many wooden shoes you and your fellow Luddite "liberals" fling. Rather than fight progress, why not embrace it and figure how to take advantage of a future where economies are no longer based on phony scarcity. Low or no cost renewable or nuclear energy is only the beginning.

Well, unless the Job Creators start doing things differently, the Welfare Society is the best real answer that anybody has come up with. When robots do all the work, why would the rewards belong strictly to the owners?

 

[werepossum]

At least Walmart is investing 10 billion dollars or 80 billion dollars or whatever it is she in bringing manufacturing back to the United States. But yes, import tariffs would do wonders for us long term. But it would take people off welfare and unemployment so the democrats don't want it, and it would kill corp profits so republicans don't want it.

Maybe. Walmart has put out of business so many American manufacturers that I'm not buying this change of heart until I see it fully realized.

Taxing rich people isn't going to work. We have to reign in government spending, tarrif imports, and give all graduates a green card so we can build a middle class.

It's truly scary how short a time that all the truly wealthy people's money would run the government.

 

[soccerballtux]

Maybe. Walmart has put out of business so many American manufacturers that I'm not buying this change of heart until I see it fully realized.

the reasoning I heard kinda makes sense. Their growth is stagnating because their consumer base doesn't have any more money to spend. So they're trying to employ them.
At least it's something.

It's truly scary how short a time that all the truly wealthy people's money would run the government.

yeah.



This reminds me. The corps that don't want to hire English speaking Software Engineers because they can't afford them, to them I say 1. Tough. Perhaps you should be paying more of your profits to them since they're in demand. If you don't want to do that, you must not need them badly enough. 2. Cut middle management, fluff, and stop making shortsighted decisions that hurt you long term so that you lean out a bit so that it's not so hard to: 3. innovate. Stop being content with the status quo.

What's the incentive for hypothetical corp to spend its profits on higher salaries for engineers to attract talent? Now they have no profit to work with. Instead of toss a coin side A growth, side B curl up and die, we can have side C, coin lands on the rim and stalemate. No innovation, no death, just status quo, and use your weight to continue lobbying for stagnation. End result: Great Britain, where the same 200 companies in charge 50 years ago are still ruling 50 years later. No Googles, No Microsofts, no Apples.

 

[Anarchist420]

Simple facts. The deficits of both the Reagan & Bush eras were driven by military expenditures & tax cuts.

reagan barely cut taxes and bush's tax cuts on high income earners didnt even total $600bn over the 8 years he was in office. the debt they created was mainly military spending and bureaucracy.