Poll: Tax the Rich?
- Thread starter What Would Jesus Do?
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He has proposed a top marginal rate of 90%, but whatever. Eff math.
Agree. This scares the sh*t out of me that so many people believe this and unfortunately they are probably taught this by liberal liberal teachers who don't understand simple economic principles.Ah yes, the zero sum game of economics.
If someone wins, then someone inevitably loses
I've already pointed it out, but the tide's not raising anyone but the rich. Middle class wages have gone nowhere the entire time the rich got richer.
OK, if you like specific. You said "Let's take sports" then you used Lebron James as your example. Under any reasonable interpretation that is invoking the NBA assuming you know what sport Lebron James plays. The only laughable thing here is that you think that you have a point.
Don't forget fed policy. There' a paper written by one of the fed members saying this very point. The easy money policy, the low interest rates have made it easier to borrow money but also inflated the stock market (where else are people going to put their money?).
I'd add one more thing to your list. Increase in addiction. Whether it be drugs, alcohol, gambling, these hit the poor harder than anyone and keep them from reaching a higher class.
"Most of those discussing the rise in inequality, including Piketty, look at “market income,” which does not take into account either taxes or social-welfare transfer payments. I’ve fallen into this trap myself on occasion. But, obviously, both of those factors have a significant impact on net income. If those factors are taken into account, income inequality actually decreased in the U.S. over the decade from 2000 to 2010, according to Gary Burtless from the liberal Brookings Institution.
"Looking at the issue from another direction, a study by Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute finds that consumption (that is, spending) for both the highest quintile and the lowest has been relatively flat over the last decades, weakening the argument that there has been increasing inequality."
"Of course, I’ve been talking about income, and Piketty and others are more concerned about the disparity in accumulated wealth. The highest quintile, after all, may be saving their increased wealth rather than spending it. Over time, this can lead to increasing disparity. But even here, the evidence shows that wealth distribution has been relatively stable over the past several decades. According to research using the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans held 34.4 percent of the country’s wealth in 1965. By 2010, the last year for which data are available, that proportion had barely risen, to 35.4 percent."
"Although it is a virtual matter of faith on the Left that the poor are poor because the rich are rich, there is little correlation between poverty rates and inequality. Poverty rates have sometimes risen during periods of relatively stable levels of inequality and declined during times of rising inequality. The idea that gains by one person necessarily mean losses by another reflects a zero-sum view of the economy that is simply untethered to history or economics. The economy is not fixed in size, with the only question being one of distribution. Rather, the entire pie can grow, with more resources available to all. Moreover, this argument ignores the degree to which poverty is attributable to the choices and actions of the poor themselves. High-school dropouts are roughly three and a half times as likely to end up in poverty as those who complete at least a high-school education, while few college graduates are poor for any extended period of time. Children growing up in single-parent families are almost five times as likely to be poor as children growing up in married-couplefamilies. Less than 3 percent of full-time workers live in poverty. The link between income inequality and poverty is tenuous at best."
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377883/inequality-myths-michael-tanner
LOL. You change the subject to "sports" then whine when I point you are factually wrong. Then you are upset when I bring up LBJ and point out the obvious that his richness is due to far more than his basketball salary. Now you are hurt again because you've proved again that your game is way off. The point being nobody cares about a Hollywood actor or athlete making a lot more money than the "poor" person. So, why the whine because Bill Gates makes a lot more. This is like our abortion debate where you could argue on points so you need to ignore or misrepresent the definition of terms. What happened to the natural that used to debate fairly instead of dodging and obfuscating?
Who cares, it's still batsh*t crazy, but luckily Sanders has no chance of winning.
This is sort of embarrassing for you, but "sports" is the subject you picked and presented. You know personal attacks work best when you have the goods to back them up. As it is, you are good for my ego.
Yes, because that formula has worked so well for us in the past. We increase education funding and teachers get paid more and students don't learn anything extra. Healthcare? I thought ACA was supposed to fix everything. Infrastructure? Wonderful the biggest waste of money in the budget with every congressperson's pork project included.
So, efficiency of money doesn't matter. The debt increases. The poor are no better off. You've done nothing to solve the breakdown of the family unit (one of the major root causes), nor done anything to address addiction which is a primary reason so many people are poor.
Sorry, I don't trust the central planners to deal with this problem as they basically f*ck up everything they touch. They'll just make matters worse as we've seen with the Fed policies which have made banks "too big to fail"(Dodd-Frank helped enshrine this), interest rates are near zero which allows the rich to borrow lots of cheap money, and it overinflates the stock market because people can't make any money anywhere else so they are forced to invest in the stock market if they want any type of return on their money.
You really have to take this in context. Almost nobody paid those really high rates. The brackets were astronomically high and with deductions, barely anyone qualified for them.
I wonder what it looks like if we superimpose this over the rise of our national debt?
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Yes, batsh*t crazy. What were the exemptions, writeoffs, credits, deductions, etc during each of those years. It is interesting though that we had our best economic growth during the 80-90's when the tax rate was falling. Maybe your point is we need to slash the rates for everyone to get us out of the worst post-WWII economic recovery. Maybe you are starting to understand something.
I'd favor cutting the rates and getting rid of all the writeoffs, etc, or eliminating the income tax and going to a national sales tax where you'd capture money in the underground economy.
Still, none of this changes the fact that Sanders is batsh*t crazy and has no chance of winning.
Hey I am with you on that. I am sure there is a reasonable rate in there somewhere when loopholes and what not are cut off. I have to counter with raising capital gains taxes back to more normal rates though.
Lost me here.
I did back it up, you thought you made a clever point about salary caps but in reality you looked silly because you were ignorant to the fact MLB doesn't have a salary cap, or that athletes, like James, make lots of money outside of their salary.
BTW, have you figured out what the word "inherent" means yet?
The quality of your argument, not my superb dictionary skills are in question here.
Ouch.I wonder what it looks like if we super impose this over the rise of our national debt?
I wonder what it looks like if we superimpose this over the rise of our national debt?
Not at all. Only because you disagreed with me did my argument become one of "poor quality". You ran away because you couldn't answer questions, refused to answer questions, couldn't formulate a rational argument, then you clearly demonstrated in your comments you had no clue what "functionalism" means, nor did you know what inherent meant. Then you refused to see or acknowledge that your reasoning could apply to infanticide. I didn't say you are a proponent of infanticide, only that a person who supports infanticide could use your argument an feel right at home because it's the logical end game of what you are arguing. The fact you've been unwilling or incapable of seeing this goes to your blindspot, it has nothing to do with you make a well reasoned argument.
Since you are presenting these two graphs together...are we to assume you are implying causation between the two disparate subjects? What is your intent in putting these two thoughts together?I wonder what it looks like if we superimpose this over the rise of our national debt?
Well the top 10% of income earners in the US pay about 70% of the total taxes while earning only 45% of the income. The bottom 50% of income earners pay 3% of the total taxes while earning 12% of the income. Approximately 49% of Americans pay no tax at all. So how much more of the tax burden do you want to shift to the rich and what will it gain?
Sucks that they have to do this, but they're the only ones with the expendable income to do so. Someone has to pay for our expenses.
I think its pretty obvious. We stopped paying our bills and the bills accumulated. Its not voodoo.
It seems though by your answer that you are representing causation. While we often disagree, you normally have substance to your points...but this isn't one of those times. There are dozens, if not hundreds or more, variables that could influence the graphs you presented and I am pretty sure you are smart enough to know that.
Just ONE tiny little factor that is not represented in the graphs you presented that has more than a little bit to do with national debt is the spending patterns and policies in play in a given year...regardless of the marginal tax rate at that time. Very poor representation Natural.
More money isn't the answer for education. We already spend more than we ever have on education.
Wanna improve (public) education in this country? Demand higher performance standards for teachers, and encourage (read: allow) more school choice.
The graphs represent your point as well. We stopped paying and kept spending, hence the piling up of the bills.
What about special ed? Isn't that where the money really goes and why US test scores are lower? And if you want a better quality teacher, would you pay for that caliber of professional? How are you going to get students to leave Pappajohn and start taking classes at Lindquist?
So then you agree that to place two graphs in a post and essentially equate higher marginal tax rates and correspondingly lower levels of federal debt wasn't an "on point" representation.
Right now we are collecting a record amount of taxes and yet our deficit is still upside down and we are adding every year to the national debt. Yes, I realize that we aren't adding to it as fast today as we were 2-4 years ago, however, we are still piling it on and there is nothing that causes me to think even for a second that if the tax policy was changed and more tax was collected yet, that there is enough discipline and understanding in government anywhere to use it wisely.
I agree with this Huey - those that got the money have to pay the bills. What bothers me is the demagoruery and class-warfare tactics of those who spew "the rich need to pay their fair share" mantra.
No I don't agree. It was on point to show we aren't paying our bills. Its not on point if you are expecting that one point to cover all points related to our current economic situation. Just as your point that we spend too much or can't trust washington isn't "on point" in fully explaining our current circumstance either. We used to tax to cover our spending. In the 80's we got the idea that we didn't need to tax to cover spending all while spending more. My juxtaposition just makes it clear that thinking produced debt.
No, your argument is weak because you picked an example in the NBA and professional sports generally that runs counter to your position. I'm going to resist your urge to turn this into another abortion thread. But if you read my replies in that thread you will see that I did answer your questions and display proper use of vocabulary. You just don't like how that argument worked out, it was another loser for you. Find better arguments, I've seen you make them.
By accepting the false narrative of which percentage is right for taxation, you have abandoned the rightful argument that taxation is theft and that someone other than yourself has the right to the fruits of your labor. Just who do you think is running the government? It isn't the plumber. It is the super rich pulling the strings of the politicians. They surely would not tax themselves into poverty. Just look at the bank bailout in 2008. They got it and you didn't. They have the army of lobbyists on K Street fighting for your shekels as they feed on the federal teat. This system is deeply flawed as the middle class is being crushed as designed. Why anyone would still grasp onto this notion is beyond belief. How many times do you have to be peed on before you realize it's not raining?
Wrong on both counts. LBJ doesn't just make money from his basketball team, so it doesn't run 'counter' to my position. You tried to get cute with the sports comment and it blew up in your face because you didn't realize MLB doesn't have a salary cap. Note: when trying to be clever or humorous, you might want to know the facts.
You went dodging, weaving, and running as fast as you could from the abortion debate because you were getting your clock cleaned. I understand your dilemma. You couldn't answer the questions (you answered one out of about 8) and you clearly didn't have any clue what functionalism means (which is why you reference dog acts), nor did you inherent which is why you claimed it was synonymous with functionalism. It was apparent you were out of your league early on when you said you didn't need to define personhood because your argument was based personal autonomy. You were clearly oblivious to the fact that the word person is the root word of "personal", so you can't define personal autonomy without first defining who is a person.
I was actually disappointed in your argument. I expected much more from you and I got a juvenile effort on your part. I'm sure you can do better next time, at least I hope so. I enjoy debating with you but that was just too easy, you might has well of thrown in the white towel at the opening bell. That's no fun.
It sure takes a lot of words to deny reality. Just read up in the thread, my point is clear for all to see. So clear it's almost worrying that you can't see it.
I agree, people can see you ran and hid, refusing to answer important questions. How do you define "personal autonomy" if we don't first define what a person is? Seriously, you didn't even come close to hitting the target. Tell you what. Brush up on your argument, do more thinking about it, do some research, whatever it takes, just so you can form an articulate, rational argument the next time we have an argument about abortion. By that time maybe you'll learn the meaning of the words functionalism and inherently, because until you understand those terms, it's not really worth discussing the issue with you.
American folk hero and bank robber said it best when asked why he kept robbing banks...."Because that is where the money is.
The same goes for taxes.......Hell yes, tax them! (Because they have the money.)
The same goes for taxes.......Hell yes, tax them! (Because they have the money.)
