• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Do you think Obama wants to redistribute wealth?

Do you think Obama wants to redistribute wealth?


  • Total voters
    95
Friedman was for wealth redistribution?

Friedman wanted to replace the welfare state with a negative income tax, which he argued would remove the disencentives to work and family formation while increasing the income of the poor. I'm actually putting some of the numbers together on it now, it looks like he was pretty spot-on (as he usually was).
 
Not so much.
But he was in favor of oppressive governments apparently that implement his ideas :shrug:

:lamo


Friedman's ideas centered around reducing government control and influence over our lives. Opressive governance is kinda the opposite :)
 
tax cuts are not wealth redistribution..... I don't care how many times you people argue as much, it will never be true.

Tax cuts are as much income redistribution as tax increases are. Whenever you change the tax rate you are redistributing wealth. I don't care how many time you people deny it, it will always be true.
Its just a talking point one way or the other.
 
As hard as I try I will never understand why people on the left hate and begrudge the wealthy in this country and want more oftheir money when they are already paying most of the taxes in this country.

LOL....did you call it "wealth redistribution when Reagan asked the rich to pay their fair share?"....oops I forgot....probably not....he had a (R) behind his name.
 
Tax cuts are as much income redistribution as tax increases are.

Inasmuch as zero is a number, that is correct. Neither of these are income redistribution. transfer payments are income redistribution.
 
As hard as I try I will never understand why people on the left hate and begrudge the wealthy in this country and want more oftheir money when they are already paying most of the taxes in this country.

You're delusional, wealthy pay most of the taxes??? Did some rich guy tell you that?

I'm not sure what you consider rich but people earning between 50k and 500k pay most of our taxes. I'm talking about executives who do terrible jobs and get payed $1mill+ and get $100k bonuses as they fire people in the name of short term "cost cut" while shrinking the company and driving it back into the dirt from which the real entrepreneurs raised them. The same entrepreneurs who put everything on the line and invested everything they got back in their company and the economy. Those guys I don't mind having low taxes as they give it back.
 
We have a mechanism in place to determine who is deserving of financial success. It's called a free market, and those who contribute to society are rewarded according to their contribution. That's why Bill Gates has more money than the crack addict sleeping under a park bench. You and I don't determine who deserves financial success. If I was in charge, Wacko Jacko would have spent his career cleaning public toilets; but I'm not in charge, and I accept that. Your life will be much happier when you also learn to accept that your idea of "fairness" doesn't count for any more than mine.

What's to stop a group of people from manipulating things to their advantage and essentially rob people of their hard work. Some CEO's do terrible jobs, lose the company money, and still get payed bonuses care to explain how the "free market" is fair there?
 
Tax cuts are as much income redistribution as tax increases are. Whenever you change the tax rate you are redistributing wealth. I don't care how many time you people deny it, it will always be true.
Its just a talking point one way or the other.

yes.. no matter how many time I say something factual and accurate... you will believe the opposite.

we know.


tax cuts are never wealth redistribution... please learn the definition of the terms you are attempting to argue.. please.
 
Inasmuch as zero is a number, that is correct. Neither of these are income redistribution. transfer payments are income redistribution.

I'll bite. What's a transfer payment?
 
You're delusional, wealthy pay most of the taxes??? Did some rich guy tell you that?

I'm not sure what you consider rich but people earning between 50k and 500k pay most of our taxes. I'm talking about executives who do terrible jobs and get payed $1mill+ and get $100k bonuses as they fire people in the name of short term "cost cut" while shrinking the company and driving it back into the dirt from which the real entrepreneurs raised them. The same entrepreneurs who put everything on the line and invested everything they got back in their company and the economy. Those guys I don't mind having low taxes as they give it back.

it's true.
 
You're delusional, wealthy pay most of the taxes??? Did some rich guy tell you that?

um. no. the IRS and the CBO tell us that.

I'm not sure what you consider rich but people earning between 50k and 500k pay most of our taxes.

Well, that is true. Of course, most of us would consider someone making $500K a rich to be wealthy. I would consider myself wealthy at that point. Mind you, I think I'm doing pretty good now. :)

I'm talking about executives who do terrible jobs and get payed $1mill+ and get $100k bonuses as they fire people in the name of short term "cost cut" while shrinking the company and driving it back into the dirt from which the real entrepreneurs raised them. The same entrepreneurs who put everything on the line and invested everything they got back in their company and the economy. Those guys I don't mind having low taxes as they give it back.

except that when they sell their businesses their income spikes for a year, putting them up into that Evil 1%.
 
I'll bite. What's a transfer payment?

It's exactly what it sounds like. A program that exists solely for purpose not of producing a public good, but of transferring resources from one group in society to another. Social Security is an example. TANF is another. WIC is a third, Unemployment a fourth, and so on and so forth.
 
It's exactly what it sounds like. A program that exists solely for purpose not of producing a public good, but of transferring resources from one group in society to another. Social Security is an example. TANF is another. WIC is a third, Unemployment a fourth, and so on and so forth.

would a trust fund qualify? A tax cut for the rich? An oil depreciation allowance? Tax write offs for wining and dining for business execs? Free popcorn? Btw, the programs you mentioned do a lot of good for the public people who receive them.

Please no trickle down answers. I am sick of social Darwinism.
 
would a trust fund qualify?.
no
A tax cut for the rich?
no
An oil depreciation allowance?
no
Tax write offs for wining and dining for business execs?
no
Free popcorn?
only if it is provided by the government at the expense of other taxpayers

Btw, the programs you mentioned do a lot of good for the public people who receive them
irrelevant.

Please no trickle down answers. I am sick of social Darwinism.
what is a trickle down answer?
does your employer pay you to work, or do you pay them to supervise you while you work?
 
would a trust fund qualify? A tax cut for the rich?

no. redistribution requires that something first be taken and then distributed. no tax hikes or tax reductions are in and of themselves redistribution of wealth or a transfer payment.

An oil depreciation allowance? Tax write offs for wining and dining for business execs? Free popcorn?

no, no, and no. not taking something from someone is not the same as giving something to someone.

Btw, the programs you mentioned do a lot of good for the public people who receive them.

I would tend to suspect that is not the case, and that in fact the destructive incentives we have embedded in our welfare state have done our poor quite a lot of harm.
 
Redistributing wealth isn't the same thing as being paid what you earn. I mean, Barack Obama isn't Robin Hood.
 
listen, a rich guy ending up with more of his own money after tax day is not, nor will it ever be, wealth redistribution... it's his money. there has been no transfer... the government taking less of his money is not the same as giving the rich guy someones else's money.

You can say that over and over. But let's face it. If we start with say, a marginal tax rate on income at $1 million of 25% and then reduce it for half the people to 15% and increase on the other half to 35% you're moving money around, even though you've only manipulated tax rates.

Let's say two people both make at least $1.1 million. We tax income at $1 million to $1.1 million at 25% starting off. So both will pay 25%, or $25,000 for the year on that $100,000. Now let's split it, we'll tax person A at 15% and person B at 35%. Now person A pays $15,000 and person B pays $35,000. How on earth can you not consider this taking $10,000 from person B and giving it to person A?

If we simply raised person B's tax holding person A's tax rate constant but instead gave person A an extra one-time social security payment of $10,000 you'd call that wealth redistribution, I hope? Does it really matter whether person A is getting $10,000 more in some government benefit or if person A is paying $10,000 less tax to begin with?

(If you're slow, I'm talking about capital gains vs. ordinary income tax rates - different tax rates, same amount of income.)
 
You can say that over and over. But let's face it. If we start with say, a marginal tax rate on income at $1 million of 25% and then reduce it for half the people to 15% and increase on the other half to 35% you're moving money around, even though you've only manipulated tax rates.
you are still missing a single requirement that makes wealth redistribution what it is... the transfer payment.

you can argue until you are blue in the face that tax cuts are welth redistribution, and you will be wrong.. with a blue face.

Let's say two people both make at least $1.1 million. We tax income at $1 million to $1.1 million at 25% starting off. So both will pay 25%, or $25,000 for the year. Now let's split it, we'll tax person A at 15% and person B at 35%. Now person A pays $15,000 and person B pays $35,000. How on earth can you not consider this taking $10,000 from person B and giving it to person A?
again, favorable tax rates are not wealth redistribution.
you can consider your example to be one of taking 10 grand less from person B... but you cannot consider it " giving 10 grand to person A"... no transfer payment was made.
your's is just an example of one person paying less taxes than another, but certainly not wealth redistribution.

If we simply raised person B's tax holding person A's tax rate constant but instead gave person A an extra one-time social security payment of $10,000 you'd call that wealth redistribution, I hope? Does it really matter whether person A is getting $10,000 more in some government benefit or if person A is paying $10,000 less tax to begin with?
yes.. the minute you gave out a transfer payment, it becomes a wealth redistribution.

and now i'm beginning to see your confusion.... you equate keeping your own money to someone giving you someone elses money.
end result might be the same( you got mo money in he bank), but the means are vastly different.

listen, if I shoot you in the heart and you die.. you're dead... from a fatal gunshot wound.
now, if i stab you in the heart with a machete.. are you still dead from a fatal gunshot wound?... you are arguing that , yes.. both are fatal gunshot wounds.
(If you're slow, I'm talking about capital gains vs. ordinary income tax rates - different tax rates, same amount of income.)
meh, doesn't matter.... you still don't quite have the grasp on wealth redistribution yet... but we'll get there:)
 
What do you think and why would he want to do that?
He's already told Joe the Plumber that he wants to redistribute wealth, but I think it goes beyond even that.
 
yes.. the minute you gave out a transfer payment, it becomes a wealth redistribution.

and now i'm beginning to see your confusion.... you equate keeping your own money to someone giving you someone elses money.
end result might be the same( you got mo money in he bank), but the means are vastly different.

Alright, as long as we're in agreement that the end result is the same I'm satisfied. Semantics isn't an argument I care for. I don't care if I pay $90,000 in taxes or pay $100,000 in taxes and get a $10,000 payment. No difference at all regardless of terminology.
 
Alright, as long as we're in agreement that the end result is the same I'm satisfied. Semantics isn't an argument I care for. I don't care if I pay $90,000 in taxes or pay $100,000 in taxes and get a $10,000 payment. No difference at all regardless of terminology.

the difference between our terminologies is not one of semantics.. it's one of very different definitions.

if I call a banana an apple.. you can't say " well, they are both fruits, so you are right, it's just semantics anyways"

werds' gots' meanins'
 
You can say that over and over. But let's face it. If we start with say, a marginal tax rate on income at $1 million of 25% and then reduce it for half the people to 15% and increase on the other half to 35% you're moving money around, even though you've only manipulated tax rates.

no you aren't. you are simply taking less from one location and taking more from another. no money has been moved in this scenario except in the direction it always has been: from the taxpayers to you.

Let's say two people both make at least $1.1 million. We tax income at $1 million to $1.1 million at 25% starting off. So both will pay 25%, or $25,000 for the year on that $100,000. Now let's split it, we'll tax person A at 15% and person B at 35%. Now person A pays $15,000 and person B pays $35,000. How on earth can you not consider this taking $10,000 from person B and giving it to person A?

because in no way does the government give Person A $20,000. They just took $20K less.
 
because in no way does the government give Person A $20,000. They just took $20K less.

And yet, the out come is the same. If we reduce Bill's taxes and increase Bob's such that for the same income Bob pays $20,000 more than Bill it's no different than if we just increased Bob's income tax by $10,000 and gave that $10,000 through some government handout to Bill. At least as far as the dollars are concerned. Whether an actual government program was involved - I guess it matters to some. "Government handout" has a negative sound to it for sure. To me, I'm just looking at the end result and the end result is the same.
 
And yet, the out come is the same.

:shrug: there are lots of ways that person A ends up with more money. however redistribution has not taken place.

If we reduce Bill's taxes and increase Bob's such that for the same income Bob pays $20,000 more than Bill it's no different than if we just increased Bob's income tax by $10,000 and gave that $10,000 through some government handout to Bill. At least as far as the dollars are concerned.

given that incentive structures alter behavior, that is sadly not as safe an assumption as you might think.

Whether an actual government program was involved - I guess it matters to some. "Government handout" has a negative sound to it for sure. To me, I'm just looking at the end result and the end result is the same.

no, there is a vital distinction between me giving something to you and me taking less from you. To claim interchangeability is to apply the implicit assumption that everything that is yours belongs rightfully to me in the first place.
 
Back
Top Bottom