To hear conservatives tell it, you’d think mobs of shiftless welfare moms were marauding through the streets of Greenwich and Palm Springs, lynching bankers and hedge-fund managers, stringing up shopkeepers, and herding lawyers into internment camps. President Obama and his budgeteers, they say, have declared war on the rich.
On Tuesday, Washington Post columnist (and former Bush speechwriter) Michael Gerson argued in an op-ed that “Obama chose a time of recession to propose a massive increase in progressivity—a 10-year, trillion-dollar haul from the rich, already being punished by the stock market collapse and the housing market decline.” The plans are so radical, “there will not be enough wealthy people left to bleed.” CNBC’s Larry Kudlow wrote that “Obama is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.”
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Obama’s proposals don’t mean the government would steal every penny you make above the $250,000 threshold, or that making more than $250,000 would somehow subject all of your income to higher taxes. Rather, you’d pay 36 cents to the government in income taxes on every dollar over the threshold, rather than 33 cents.
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Second, this return to 2001’s tax rates was actually part of the Bush tax plan. […] Third, we know from recent experience that marginal tax rates of 36 percent and 39 percent aren’t wealth killers. […] Fourth, we also know from recent experience that lower marginal rates on income taxes, and lower rates on capital gains and dividends, aren’t necessarily wealth producers.
[…]
What would happen if the marginal rate on the portion of your income above $250,000 were to rise from 33 percent to 36 percent? Under the old regime, you’d pay $16,500 in federal taxes on that amount. Under the new one, you’d pay $18,000. The difference is $1,500 per year, or $4.10 per day. Obviously, the numbers rise as you make more. But is $4.10 a day bleeding the rich, a war on the wealthy, a killer of innovation and enterprise?
#96 Would you support 70% taxation by the government IF most people had a better life compared to Flat 15%? What value trumps success?
The value that trumps success is FREEDOM. The pro’s of government control is that you get the bare minimum to exist, food, clothing, shelter, security (unless they want to re-educate you). The con is that you must give up your FREEDOM. The freedom to do your thing without government telling you that you’re not allowed. The freedom to have a big house, nice car, or a small house, no car, or a boat to sail around the world. Leftism undermines freedom by definition.
It’s the lack of this understanding by the intellectual class especially at the university level that will make this recession a long one. Marx the intellectual didn’t understand it, and Obama the intellectual doesn’t understand it (not comparing them beyond that one point).
Show me where 70-100% government intervention in an economy elevates a society in the world today. Those two things can’t exist at the same time, it’s been proven but is now forgotten.
I say tax the sh*t out of the rich, and if they don’t like it, they can take their millions or billions to another country, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. But despite their bitching and complaining, they won’t. You know why? Because unlike you ignernt yahoos, they have fancy tax accountants and “wealth management advisors” that point out several things to them:
1. All the other first-world countries have much higher tax rates for the rich than the U.S. does.
2. The places you can go with lower tax rates, your tax savings are eaten up by such things as bribes to corrupt officials (e.g. Mexico) and armed guards, because the low tax rate countries are also second- and third-world countries rife with corruption and violence. Not to mention the armored vehicles you need if you dare venture out of your walled compound among the poor and desperate.
People benefit by living in a stable country with low crime and a relatively honest and efficient bureaucracy. Rich people benefit the most, because they have the most to lose (i.e. the most money) in times of chaos. So, since they benefit the most, tax them more. Supply and demand, it’s a beautiful thing. 🙂
And none of this “flat rate means rich pay more because 15% of $1M is more than 15% of $1K” stuff. No, I say tax them at a higher rate because they benefit more. I say we call their bluff. They benefit the most from a stable society, they get to keep their money, not to worry about having it taken thru bribery and robbery.
97–comtempt==
Sorry, but I’ve read your work and it conflicts with this statement. /// Context is everything.
Not a good argument – x can never equal y on a blog unless you want to write page after page no one will ever read. /// Your very next statement is x = y.
70% taxation on anyone is cruel and unusual punishment. /// x = y. ((The real problem is it would take pages to explain your simplistic view, and then you wouldn’t get it==so instead you get what you get.))
Pearls before swine.
#99–shittybc==yes I know. Oppression is the government taking one dollar from you but freedom is capitalist class denying you tens of dollars before you ever see them.
And yet you think you are free. Hah, hah. Economic chattel.
#91 – bobbo,
Always asking me questions that cause introspection. Hmm…
”I do not believe in victimless crime.” /// Thats ambiguous. What don’t you believe in==no victims or no crimes?
I don’t believe that anything that does not result in a victim should be a crime.
Once an activity is not a crime, why “exactly” should it not be promoted?
Good question. Let me think about that one and get back to you.
(done)
Something’s a little different about sex. Forcing, albeit economically, someone to have a sexual encounter is called rape.
Why shouldn’t poor people, or sexually interested people be encouraged to enter the safe, legal, and profitable business of prostitution? What hangovers do you think will continue into an age of enlightenment?
See above. We don’t want to force people or even economically encourage them to enter prostitution because it could be construed as rape or at the very least sexual harassment.
Same with marijuana. Why not encourage it over more injurious chemicals or even “mindsets?” Which is worse for the body/psyche==religion or MJ. Things could easily get so bad, we may find out?
That there are things worse than drugs (e.g. religion) does not mean we should encourage either one. Why encourage the lesser evil? Why not discourage or at least not encourage either one.
#92 – Paddy-O,
… Same as drinking & driving.
Exactly so. The crime is in the reckless endangerment of combining drugs and automobiles.
Explain why so many religiously listens to that big mouth lard ass in Florida. He’s pulling in $100 million plus a year and has his own agenda, like saying whatever it takes to keep his millions rolling in. He’s no politician, he’s a damn entertainer. You keep trying to stretch that unemployment check as far it it will go and keep on being a ditto. God damn bunch of sheep, open your eyes. My 401K is now a 201K, how about yours? What kind of asshole wants to see his countries leaders fail and it’s people suffer for years.
#94 – Ivor Tinyun,
Are you denying that WWII had an effect on the US Economy?
No. Are you denying that the economy continued to do wonderfully with high taxes for 30 years after?
# 100 Phydeau said, “1. All the other first-world countries have much higher tax rates for the rich than the U.S. does.”
You REALLY need to get out and travel more. Maybe you mean 1st world/G7 nations… Ever thought of Monaco, Lichtenstein, Andorra, Isle of Man, etc., etc.
To Guyver and other idiots and Libertarians (but I repeat myself):
We will never have a flat tax, not because the poor don’t want it, but because the rich don’t want it. With our current complicated tax code, the people who can afford fancy tax lawyers (hint hint class, who would that be?) get to work the angles and find every loophole and pay less taxes than us working stiffs. Look at the real tax rate that most corporations and rich end up paying, and you’ll see that it’s generally less than what middle class types pay.
The top 1% of income earners in this country pay nearly 40% of our government’s income tax revenue.
The top 5% pay 60%.
The top 10% pay 71%.
PDF link: http://tinyurl.com/aamey9
# 110 Phydeau said, “Look at the real tax rate that most corporations and rich end up paying, and you’ll see that it’s generally less than what middle class types pay.”
LOL!
read post #111.
#105–Scot==you shouda though more.
Equating sex to rape. Just how catholic “were you?” Really a hang up there. I can see “feeling that” initially, but actually writing it down? Whew!! By direct application, then any other non-sexual work is actually bonded slavery?
I have it on good report that some men and women actually like sex. The whole point of “a free market” is that everyone is variously motivated and that motivation changes from time to time and is always a combination.
Reminds me of an old joke: You don’t pay a prostitute for sex. You pay her to leave.
Your analysis fails from the same catholic guilt when applied to drugs vs religion. Why are drugs at all evil? Jerry Garcia or Dr. Feelgood said only people who needed mental health services couldn’t stand a good trip. Open the doors of your perceptions. Good for some, bad for others.
Even the notion of cumulative body harm is not the best of anti reasons. Football players, mine workers, day care attendants all “spend” their bodies to make a living. We all choose our own poison.
110, I already said the flat / fair tax would never happen. And I never said it was because the poor didn’t want it. The problem is transparency as you and I have both stated directly or indirectly.
#109 Sure, Paddy-O, the rich could go live in those little tax-shelter nations. But good luck trying to run a business there or make any more money. Those places are for people who have made their millions and just want to live off it now, not for ambitious business types.
#116 My point is, with less “burdensome” government intervention, the rich make off with more money and the rest of us with less. And you libertarians still want less government. You have admitted that if the government enforced its will and instituted a flat tax, the rich would pay more in taxes and you would pay less. And yet, you still insist that government intervention is bad.
Unless you like paying more taxes than the rich.
#114–Paddy-Zero==you really don’t see/understand the wiggle room in those numbers provided?
I guess any evidence will do when you are convinced of the answer.
#114 Yes, Paddy O’Troll, the rich really are filthy, stinking, incredibly rich, so even at the lower tax rate they pay, they still pay a lot. And how is this relevant?
117, Actually the rich would be better off taking a one to four year vacation while living in the United States.
Since “rich” is defined by your annual income, there are plenty of “rich” people who could qualify for welfare while being on vacation (while living in a nice house with maid service).
That would make much more sense than relocating to another country like what you said in post #100.
# 117 Phydeau said, “Sure, Paddy-O, the rich could go live in those little tax-shelter nations. But good luck trying to run a business there or make any more money.”
You REALLY have zero knowledge, don’t you? Just because you are citizen of one country doesn’t mean you can’t run a business in another. It doesn’t even mean you can’t live in more than one country.
Do you do stand up for a living?
118, How do you know if the government was out of your pocketbook less, that you’d be worse off? And who cares if the rich are better off if a fair tax were imposed?
The problem with you liberal types is you’re too preoccupied with what money other people make / save. It’s p3nis envy.
And when the deck is already stacked against the “rich”, you liberal types still scream that it’s not good enough. You guys are obsessed with other people’s money.
If the government were to hypothetically change its tax policies towards a fair tax, I wouldn’t call that “enforcing its will” as though the force was not there to begin as you seem to be implying. The force of government is already there as it is now with the current tax policies.
A fair tax would put control over how much each person contributes to taxes by their consumption habits. As it is now, you and I have no control…. unless you want to work for less money. If the rich were to pay more under a fair tax system, it would only be because they are buying the more expensive things in life.
There is a need for government…. but not to have it in every facet of our lives because you liberals whine that life is unfair. Suck it up and be a big boy.
#99–shittybc==yes I know. Oppression is the government taking one dollar from you but freedom is capitalist class denying you tens of dollars before you ever see them.>>>
Oh so you’re a university professor with the non-answer and ad homonym attacks. Well I’m not some dumb 19 year old that needs to kiss your ring for a good grade to get a good job.
The problem is that you can’t show me a society that is 70-100% controlled by government that has turned out well. It’s called totalitarianism and it never does. You first start with the starvation and then move into the re-education. I lived in one and contrary to what you and Michael Moore say, it’s no fun.
So you either 1) Have never lived in what you profess it be good and haven’t talked to anyone from there 2) are a part of the Ascribing Class that never had to live that way in the first place.
I think it’s #1 and like a good citizen of the closed walls of academia, you are parroting something someone else thought for you. Chattel indeed. Show me the great government society.
124–guyver==please explain how the deck is stacked against the rich again?
What a dope.
Guyver, I can’t understand your arguments so I can’t answer them. I stand by what I said earlier: The rich benefit most from our safe and non-corrupt society so they should pay the most.
What’s so fascinating is to see non-rich people working to help the rich get richer and everyone else (including themselves) get poorer. Or maybe they still believe in “trickle-down” economics…
#125–smittybc == how much “control” is exercised by the USA today?
How much control would be added or subtracted if we installed a flat tax of 15% or of 75%?
Once you define your terms, maybe we can discuss what has you so excited.
The original question was one of comparative freedom, but if you want to use percentages, lets go.
“To hear conservatives tell it, you’d think mobs of shiftless welfare moms were marauding through the streets of Greenwich and Palm Springs, lynching bankers and hedge-fund managers, stringing up shopkeepers, and herding lawyers into internment camps. President Obama and his budgeteers, they say, have declared war on the rich.”
Sounds like a plan.
#111 – Guyver,
The top 1% of income earners in this country pay nearly 40% of our government’s income tax revenue.
Yes. But, did you notice that the top 1% starts at just 388K/yr. This is not exactly billionaires. This top 1% starts with people that are still solidly in the F___ You income level.
Let me know when you find out the average percentage tax paid by people in the top 0.01% or possibly even the top 0.0001%. These are the ones getting away with not paying their taxes. And, they are making tremendous sums of money.
I have not been able to get these statistics from the U.S. government.
#114 – Paddy-O,
read post #111.
and my post 130. Where do you draw the line for rich? Do you care that while the $388K/yr are paying through the nose that the $388M/yr are not?
# 130 Misanthropic Scott said, “I have not been able to get these statistics from the U.S. government.”
Scott, I did post a while back what I found last year in the IRS site. The bitch about that site and census.gov is that they constantly move historic data around. It’s not on the same pages year to year or sometimes month to month. Wish they get decent web staff…