blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
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I guess I missed it? Here's how I read it:
*him: perhaps we should stop collecting taxes, paving roads, etc (implying we shoulldnt collect any tax, thus no funding for roads, schools, etc)
*me: inheritance taxes only make up about 1.5% of revenue collected, therefore (sarcastically) implying all our roads would crumble, our schools would close, etc. (you know, because of a 1.5% decrease in taxes).
See? Your meter needs charging, sir.
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
- 2,359
- 126
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
The whole reason for taxes is to support the rich. Taxes prop up the currency against inflation and guarantee repayment for investors of government bonds. Just FYI: those aren't things that the poor tend to be concerned about.
Then the government spends many times more on bombs and bullets to fight the rich's wars than it does on roads and education. As charity, taxes are very ineffective, being far more likely to be spent on a billyclub than a book.
Sometimes I read the idealized posts here and wonder what fsckin planet you people live on.
I swear you got to send me some of whatever it is your smoking. If the whole reason for taxes is to support the rich why are they always the ones complaining about paying more then their fair share?
Talk about your idealized post!
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
I've explained this so many times to you that I don't even know why I bother anymore. Learn to read, learn basic economics. And who among "the rich" is complaining? Buffet? Edwards? Soros? Old oil money like Gore? How much of our taxes actually help the poor and how much buy bombs, build prisons, and pay the interest on the public debt?
The rich are rarely front and center pissing and moaning about income taxation. Reason? They have designed holes to get around it. The people you hear piss and moan about income taxation are the middle and upper middle class. People who make a good income but lack wealth to take advantage of said holes.
Although in many of the dems and daves world they(middle and upper middle class) are considered rich, so I cant fault you for believing it as well.
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
- 2,359
- 126
Yes that true; however, the middle class (30-75k) have tax loopholes they dont even take advantage of...and who's fault it that? I'm upper middle class, and my net tax rate is about half of my raw rate. I dont think I've ever paid more than 20%, and I'm normally around 17-18%.
All this "The rich have loopholes!" pissing and moaning is getting old when the middle class doesnt even take advantage of their own loopholes.
Class envy FTL.
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
- 2,359
- 126
How about do a little research for yourself, unless of course youre just looking to flame responses? Spend a couple hours with a good CPA. But, alas, I imagine you'll be like the most of the country and be too lazy to do it, and sit back in ignorant bliss and criticize instead.
Your loss.
thanks for the advice... maybe you could save us all some time and money and give examples....or maybe there really aren't any and you're just blowing smoke.
He's a typical elitist democrat - one with moral superiority and loves to force his views on the rest of the population. Typical liberal - open minded unless he disagrees with your opinion.
LOL....GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + net exports
Maybe a high school union employee socialist econ teacher may think spending money is better for the economy than saving, but an econ PROFESSOR will laugh at your post.
Do you really feel this in today's economy? Maybe back in the 1800s where the masses were poor and there were no opportunities for advancement it might have rang true, but in today's economy and society where all you have to do is try half-ass in life and you can buy a mcmansion I think Buffet is just sounding like an elitest when he says this kind of stuff. It's one thing to live by your own word (i.e. his steps to give away all his wealth) but it's another to shove your opinions down others' throats and forcing them to align with your beliefs.
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
- 2,359
- 126
Jesus youre lazy.
*401k. IRA. SEP if applicable.
*Tithe to church.
*Donations to ANY charitable organization.
*Any money spent in search of employment, including moving expenses.
*Out of pocket medical expenses.
*State and local taxes paid (passed last December-thanks GOP!).
*Educators expenses if applicable. College tuition.
*Student loan interest if you pay loan payments for college tuition for your kids if applicable.
*If in the military reserve, expenses incurred for training, including travel. Child care credit.
*Jury pay if payed to your employer.
And there are more. All of these things reduce your taxable income, therefore reducing your tax burden. Do some research lazy ass.
The flat tax is a terrible idea. Taxing consumption is a terrible idea, even with an 'exemption' for the poor.
First, that still screws the middle class. While the wealthy spend more than the less wealthy, they make far, far more than the less wealthy.
In short, the more a person makes, on average, the lower the proportion they spend on consumption, and the bigger the proportion they spend on investment.
While taxing the poor would be cruel, it isn't the issue, as the money isn't there - the issue is in the relative tax burden between the middle and lower upper-class, and the top.
We know who's winning the war; from Reagan taking office to now, the top 5% went from owning 50% of all wealth to over 75%.
The income of the bottom 80% is close to zero at most after inflation. Above that it creeps up, until you get to the top 0.1% where it skyrockets up. during the last 25 years.
Why? Because while the simplistic republicans tell us the wealthy pay most taxes, they don't note that their income share is higher than that.
Almost no very rich person spends that much of their income on consumption. The middle class spends most, the poor virtually all.
What we have now is the right system, with the wrong tuning - a progressive *income* tax. What it should do is help 'all boats to rise' with productivity; right now it's biased to the top.
Genx's claim that a consumption tax would make the wealthy pay more taxes it so bascially wrong, it shows how he does not have the facts for forming an opinion.
And of course the advocates who would make a killing from a flat tax talk a lot about the exemption for the poor - because it misleads people.
Others, like Genx, don't know that's wrong but hear it and repeat it.
The flat tax, the consumption tax, is a disaster. It's not worth discussing IMO - we instead need to be talking about how to restore the balanced progressive tax.
The wealth did fine under Eisenhower with a 90% top tax rate; they did fine under Kennedy with a 70% top tax rate; they're doing far better than they should today with a 35% rate.
Here, for your reference, is a history of the top tax rates. Note that when the income tax was created, it was passed by tricking most Americans into thinking it was a 'soak the rich' proposal, where it wouldn't go above 1%; it started out at 7% for a few years. When demorat Wilson was elected, it shot up to 77%, but the wealthy were still doing fine. Republicans in the roaring 20's lowered the tax rate to the roaring 20's - 25%. Oh ya, then the great depression.
The middle class was greatly strengthened under FDR - and the year he took office the top tax rate went from 25% to 63% and climbed to 94% at the height of the war. It remained at 91% throughout Eisenhower, when the US was doing just fine including the wealthy, lowered to 70% by 1965 (by democrats). There it remained, perhaps a nice place, until Reagan, who quickly lowered it to 50% as it began the slide down, at the same time the wealthy began a radical class warfare takeover of America's wealth, increasing the concentration.
The thing is, opinions are formed more by right-wing talking head using rhetoric about jealousy and lies of omission with facts, than by the accurate info, and so middle America likes the policies that are hurting them - not only leaving them far worse off than they should be with a fair amount of taxes, but with their nation in huge debt.
We need one thing - what Bill Clinton gave us, that the republicans all wrongly predicted would greatly harm the economy - a shift back to the higher, fairer taxes at the top, so that they continue to be rewarded and incented, but not to simply have fewer Americans come to own all of America, the new oligarchy. And that includes maintaining or strengthening the estate tax. We saw our forefathers go from poverty to the middle class, and Americans *could* be far more wealthy themselves.
This is consistent with the capitalist system's good points as well; the more money available for building a better mousetrap, instead of locked up under a few at the top, the better the economic engine can incent that sort of risk and innovation; most should know that the Achilles' heel of capitalism is monopoly, and that includes ownership.
Are prices better when you have five stores selling the same thing - or one? The same goes for how things work better when there are more owners, not fewer.
One of the terribly wrong points the right implies on this issue is that increasing the taxes on the rich *eliminates* the incentive to make more money. That's wrong. If they keep 25 cents per dollar, that's 25 more than if they don't; and giving them 50, 75, or 90 cents of the dollar doesn't help the economy as much as giving that money to other Americans. They'd be right if we were eliminating their reward; we're not.
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