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Income tax; Flat tax; National Sales tax; No tax

Which do you prefer:

  • Total voters
    133
TurtleDude said:
the poor in the USA have a far higher standard of living than at any time in history and a far higher standard than those in most nations. so while the tax hike advocates constantly carp about the growing gap, they fail to note the actual living conditions of the poor-
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The conditions of the underprivileged and the hyper-segregated are equal to the conditions of the poor living in Nigeria and Korea according to research.

For people who aren't in these two areas (underprivileged and hyper-segregated) if they do experience living below the poverty level and needing to be on welfare it's usually temporary.

They cite that it goes in cycles - A family that is above the poverty line comes into a hardship (loss of job, sickness, injury, divorce) which leads them to be classified as 'poor' and they then qualify for assistance. Most are on assistance for a few years and then improve their selves.
It is temporary.
A smaller percentage within thse two areas are permanently poor - it's a generational and regional cycle.

What's proven is that those who experience times of being poor - if they live in areas where there are more places of employment and opportunities to learn new job skills unemployment and poverty-levels of income are temporary. It's easier for them to get out of it.
 
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Aunt Spiker said:
The conditions of the underprivileged and the hyper-segregated are equal to the conditions of the poor living in Nigeria and Korea according to research.

For people who aren't in these two areas (underprivileged and hyper-segregated) if they do experience living below the poverty level and needing to be on welfare it's usually temporary.

They cite that it goes in cycles - A family that is above the poverty line comes into a hardship (loss of job, sickness, injury, divorce) which leads them to be classified as 'poor' and they then qualify for assistance. Most are on assistance for a few years and then improve their selves.
It is temporary.
A smaller percentage within thse two areas are permanently poor - it's a generational and regional cycle.

What's proven is that those who experience times of being poor - if they live in areas where there are more places of employment and opportunities to learn new job skills unemployment and poverty-levels of income are temporary. It's easier for them to get out of it.
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the poor in NK or NIgeria are starving to death-not so in the USA.
 
TurtleDude said:
most in the USA have tv sets, cars , cell phones running water, air conditioning etc.

ever been to Africa or South America?
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You forgot government assistance.

I have been to the far east and have seen the poor.
 
TurtleDude said:
the poor in NK or NIgeria are starving to death-not so in the USA.
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--36.3 million people--including 13 million children--live in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger. This represents more than one in ten 0households in the United States (11.2 percent). This is an increase of 1.4 million, from 34.9, million in 2002.

--3.5 percent of U.S. households experience hunger. Some people in these households frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for a whole day. 9.6 million people, including 3 million children, live in these homes.

--7.7 percent of U.S. households are at risk of hunger. Members of these households have lower quality diets or must resort to seeking emergency food because they cannot always afford the food they need. 26.6 million people, including 10.3 million children, live in these homes.
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.........................
 
Dirty Harry said:
Without government help we would have the same problem.
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due to government help we might have more problems than we would if it were more limited

btw hunger is not starvation

obesity is a far bigger issue for our poor than starvation

subsidizing poverty increases it
 
TurtleDude said:
the poor in NK or NIgeria are starving to death-not so in the USA.
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Yes so in the US - Do you think meals on wheels travels deep in to the swamps or something? Or what about high into the Appalachian Mountains?

Truth here is that our country isn't as well off as many people think. We have a huge nation with a massive amount of land and a widespread variety of climates and cultures - to believe that every single person who lives here and is impoverished (tens of millions) is living far superior to those in other countries who also are impoverished is ridiculous and shows a lack of education on the subject.

Get rid of your mental image of a poor teen in the ghetto playing the latest video games on the government's dime. . that is not reality for most.

The CDC doesn't even track deaths from starvation - but common sense on the issue dictates that countless suffer and die every year. There's just no way to argue that they don't.
FRAC - Hunger in the U.S.

More importantly - beyond starvation from lack of food. Is that in the US and worldwide the biggest contributor to death of the poor is not starvation outright - it is malnutrition. The diseases, illnesses and conditions that come FROM malnutrition is staggering.

Food shortage is such a central part of the entire issue that it's the basis for calculating out what the poverty level even *is* year to year.

To determine "what constitutes as poor" they look at the cost of food for an average non-farm family of 4 (mom, dad, 2 kids) for an entire year of nutritious food. They multiply that by 3 - that is the poverty line. So, as food-costs go up - the poverty-line goes up and the more people that qualify for assistance.

They do it this way because studies have shown time and time again that among the lower brackets of wage-earners 1/3 to 1/4 their income goes *to* food-costs - and nothing high-end here, either.
 
anyone who thinks the poor in the USA have it as bad as those in most of africa, north Korea, India, or south america is delusional
 
TurtleDude said:
anyone who thinks the poor in the USA have it as bad as those in most of africa, north Korea, India, or south america is delusional
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You're just showing how much you don't know.

It's ok - you're not alone. The government only recently started to heavily evaluate the subject becaue even they themselves didn't believe that we still had a serious widespread issue.

But we do - a serious and ignored problem that won't go away no matter how many times you click your heels or donate to the Red Cross.
 
TurtleDude said:
so its your position that as long as there is a deficit-caused by a government elected mainly by the middle class-it is the duty of the top 2 percent to pay more and more taxes to take care of all the problems the majority has caused?

get a clue-as long as the masses dont suffer tax increases to deal with the idiotic spending they clamor for, the masses will have no incentive to stop irresponsible spending
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No, it is my position that biggest part of the deficit were expenditures that mostly benefited the rich - unfunded tax cuts for the most wealthy for the last 30 years, the wars, and a military that spends more than the rest of the world combined.

taxing the rich to slake the spite of people like you won't make the middle class more productive or more competitive
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.

This is not about the middle class being spiteful, it is about preventing more and more of the middle class from sliding into poverty.

And your claim that shifting the tax burden from the wealthiest to the middle class will make us more competitive does not stand up to the historical record:

"the massive Republican tax cuts of the 1920s (from 73 to 25 percent) led directly to the Roaring Twenties’ real estate and stock market bubbles, a temporary boom, and then the crash and Republican Great Depression that started in 1929.

Then, from the 1930s to the 1980s, rates on the very rich went back up into the 70 to 90 percent range. As a result, the economy grew steadily, and for the first time in the history of our nation we went 50 years without a crash or major bank failure. It was also during this period that the American worker’s wages increased enough to produce the strongest middle class this nation has ever seen.

Then came Reaganomics." Thom Hartmann | Roll Back the Reagan Tax Cuts

Perhaps some historical perspective of our tax rates would help you see how just how far we have gone in slashing our Progressive tax system:

Charts_Taxes_Income_Top+Rates_Cartoon_Historical-Perspective-on-Top-Tax-Rate.jpg


The flat tax would be an even further shift of tax burden on to the middle class, or as you guys call it, trickling down on us.
 
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TurtleDude said:
anyone who thinks the poor in the USA have it as bad as those in most of africa, north Korea, India, or south america is delusional
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So you've changed the discussion of the ever widening gap between the rich and the middle class to say our poor are not as bad off as the poor in Africa?

Well you have good reason to change the subject I suppose:

"An analysis conducted by the Economic Policy Institute indicates that the richest one percent of U.S. Households had a net worth 225 times greater than the average American household in 2009. That’s up from 190 times greater, the previous record set in 2004."

http://www.commercenewstoday.com/archives/4357-Widening-income-gap-bodes-ill-for-U.S..html
 
Your real tax rate: 40%
2/21/2007
By Scott Burns
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...TaxRate40.aspx


Income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, 'sin' taxes and the rest add up to a virtual Flat tax nationwide.


We Have a national flat tax, albeit one with bumps and potholes.

The fact that the political parties won't acknowledge this is one reason they are doing a disservice to the voting public.

Instead, both parties have a vested interest in the theatrical possibilities created by the idea of graduated tax rates. Notice that I said "the idea of" graduated tax rates. That should not be confused with reality.
[......]
Politicians talk this way because they generally talk about only one tax: the federal income tax, which offers graduated rates from 10% to 35%.

Politicians rarely talk about what real people experience: the true maze of taxes and government benefits. If someone put them all together, we could see what our actual tax burden was. We could see who pays at the highest or lowest rates. Discussions of tax policy wouldn't be a waste of time.

Well, two researchers did it.

In a study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Boston University economists Laurence J. Kotlikoff and David Rapson have found that our all-in marginal tax rate is 40%, give or take a bit. Yes, you read that right: 40%.

Most workers will pay about that much on each dollar of income when all taxes -- federal and state income taxes, sales taxes, taxes for benefit programs, etc. -- are considered.

As a consequence, a 30-year-old couple earning only $20,000 a year has a marginal tax rate of 42.5%, while a 45-year-old couple earning $500,000 pays at 43.2%..."
and of course Eliminating the only part of the Tax System that is progressive, Income Taxes, would result in the Effective rate of the Poor/Middle being even higher than the rich.
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Of Course a few pay Much Less than 40%.

Top Earners Averaged $345 Million in 2007, IRS Says - Bloomberg
By Ryan J. Donmoyer - February 18, 2010

The 400 highest-earning U.S. households reported an average of $345 million in income in 2007, up 31% from a year earlier, IRS statistics show.

The average tax rate for the households fell to the Lowest in almost 20 years.

The figures for 2007, the last year of an economic expansion, show that the average income reported by the top 400 earners more than doubled from $131.1 million in 2001. That year, Congress adopted tax cuts urged by then-President George W. Bush that Democrats say disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

Each household in the top 400 of earners paid an average tax rate of 16.6%, the Lowest since the agency began tracking the data in 1992, the Internal Revenue Service statistics show. The top 400 paid $23 billion in taxes in 2007, up from $18 billion a year earlier, and a bigger amount than any year since 1992.

Their average effective tax rate was about HALF the 29.4% in 1993, the first year of President Bill Clinton’s administration, when taxes were increased. The top 400 earners reported an average of $46 million of income that year.

Income ‘Exploded’

The statistics underscore “two long-term trends: that income at the very top has exploded and their taxes have been Cut dramatically,” said Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based research group that supports increasing taxes on high-income individuals....
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Catawba said:
No, it is my position that biggest part of the deficit were expenditures that mostly benefited the rich - unfunded tax cuts for the most wealthy for the last 30 years, the wars, and a military that spends more than the rest of the world combined.

.

This is not about the middle class being spiteful, it is about preventing more and more of the middle class from sliding into poverty.

And your claim that shifting the tax burden from the wealthiest to the middle class will make us more competitive does not stand up to the historical record:

"the massive Republican tax cuts of the 1920s (from 73 to 25 percent) led directly to the Roaring Twenties’ real estate and stock market bubbles, a temporary boom, and then the crash and Republican Great Depression that started in 1929.

Then, from the 1930s to the 1980s, rates on the very rich went back up into the 70 to 90 percent range. As a result, the economy grew steadily, and for the first time in the history of our nation we went 50 years without a crash or major bank failure. It was also during this period that the American worker’s wages increased enough to produce the strongest middle class this nation has ever seen.

Then came Reaganomics." Thom Hartmann | Roll Back the Reagan Tax Cuts

Perhaps some historical perspective of our tax rates would help you see how just how far we have gone in slashing our Progressive tax system:

Charts_Taxes_Income_Top+Rates_Cartoon_Historical-Perspective-on-Top-Tax-Rate.jpg


The flat tax would be an even further shift of tax burden on to the middle class, or as you guys call it, trickling down on us.
Click to expand...

I know how the numbers work
I know what was said about it

But I still don't "get" why JFK (and those with him) dropped it so significantly.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
I know how the numbers work
I know what was said about it

But I still don't "get" why JFK (and those with him) dropped it so significantly.
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I have wondered about this as well. Here is what I learned: ""The Revenue Act of 1964 was aimed at the demand, rather than the supply, side of the economy," said Arthur Okun, one of Kennedy's economic advisers.

This distinction, taught in Economics 101, seldom makes it into the Washington sound-bite wars. A demand-side cut rests on the Keynesian theory that public consumption spurs economic activity. Government puts money in people's hands, as a temporary measure, so that they'll spend it.

A supply-side cut sees business investment as the key to growth. Government gives money to businesses and wealthy individuals to invest, ultimately benefiting all Americans. Back in the early 1960s, tax cutting was as contentious as it is today, but it was liberal demand-siders who were calling for the cuts and generating the controversy.

When Kennedy ran for president in 1960 amid a sluggish economy, he vowed to "get the country moving again." After his election, his advisers, led by chief economist Walter Heller, urged a classically Keynesian solution: running a deficit to stimulate growth. (The $10 billion deficit Heller recommended, bold at the time, seems laughably small by today's standards.) In Keynesian theory, a tax cut aimed at consumers would have a "multiplier" effect, since each dollar that a taxpayer spent would go to another taxpayer, who would in effect spend it again—meaning the deficit would be short-lived.

At first Kennedy balked at Heller's Keynesianism. He even proposed a balanced budget in his first State of the Union address. But Heller and his team won over the president. By mid-1962 Kennedy had seen the Keynesian light, and in January 1963 he declared that "the enactment this year of tax reduction and tax reform overshadows all other domestic issues in this Congress."

The plan Kennedy's team drafted had many elements, including the closing of loopholes (the "tax reform" Kennedy spoke of). Ultimately, in the form that Lyndon Johnson signed into law, it reduced tax withholding rates, initiated a new standard deduction, and boosted the top deduction for child care expenses, among other provisions. It did lower the top tax bracket significantly, although from a vastly higher starting point than anything we've seen in recent years: 91 percent on marginal income greater than $400,000. And he cut it only to 70 percent, hardly the mark of a future Club for Growth member."
JFK, the demand-side tax cutter. - By David Greenberg - Slate Magazine
 
Catawba said:
I have wondered about this as well. Here is what I learned: ""The Revenue Act of 1964 was aimed at the demand, rather than the supply, side of the economy," said Arthur Okun, one of Kennedy's economic advisers.

This distinction, taught in Economics 101, seldom makes it into the Washington sound-bite wars. A demand-side cut rests on the Keynesian theory that public consumption spurs economic activity. Government puts money in people's hands, as a temporary measure, so that they'll spend it.

A supply-side cut sees business investment as the key to growth. Government gives money to businesses and wealthy individuals to invest, ultimately benefiting all Americans. Back in the early 1960s, tax cutting was as contentious as it is today, but it was liberal demand-siders who were calling for the cuts and generating the controversy.

When Kennedy ran for president in 1960 amid a sluggish economy, he vowed to "get the country moving again." After his election, his advisers, led by chief economist Walter Heller, urged a classically Keynesian solution: running a deficit to stimulate growth. (The $10 billion deficit Heller recommended, bold at the time, seems laughably small by today's standards.) In Keynesian theory, a tax cut aimed at consumers would have a "multiplier" effect, since each dollar that a taxpayer spent would go to another taxpayer, who would in effect spend it again—meaning the deficit would be short-lived.

At first Kennedy balked at Heller's Keynesianism. He even proposed a balanced budget in his first State of the Union address. But Heller and his team won over the president. By mid-1962 Kennedy had seen the Keynesian light, and in January 1963 he declared that "the enactment this year of tax reduction and tax reform overshadows all other domestic issues in this Congress."

The plan Kennedy's team drafted had many elements, including the closing of loopholes (the "tax reform" Kennedy spoke of). Ultimately, in the form that Lyndon Johnson signed into law, it reduced tax withholding rates, initiated a new standard deduction, and boosted the top deduction for child care expenses, among other provisions. It did lower the top tax bracket significantly, although from a vastly higher starting point than anything we've seen in recent years: 91 percent on marginal income greater than $400,000. And he cut it only to 70 percent, hardly the mark of a future Club for Growth member."
JFK, the demand-side tax cutter. - By David Greenberg - Slate Magazine
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Thanks for this post, very enlightening.
 
I do not want to get off topic, but I was thinking the other day about how many feel the government infusing dollars into research and the like will fail to stimulate jobs in this country and how many feel that we should not take protectionist steps and place tariffs on imports. So I ask would it not favor American business if the entire nation were to remove sales tax from American made goods only. I realize the rate is set per state and not all states have it, but in general if the country were to remove sales and usage taxes off of American made goods only, would this not aid in promoting American growth?
 
tlmorg02 said:
I do not want to get off topic, but I was thinking the other day about how many feel the government infusing dollars into research and the like will fail to stimulate jobs in this country and how many feel that we should not take protectionist steps and place tariffs on imports. So I ask would it not favor American business if the entire nation were to remove sales tax from American made goods only. I realize the rate is set per state and not all states have it, but in general if the country were to remove sales and usage taxes off of American made goods only, would this not aid in promoting American growth?
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Intriguing idea! I think it would provide an incentive to buy American, but how would we make up the lost tax revenue? Also, for clarification, do you mean removing federal taxes only, or removing state and local taxes as well?
 
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Catawba said:
Intriguing idea! I think it would provide an incentive to buy American, but how would we make up the lost tax revenue? Also, for clarification, do you mean removing federal taxes only, or removing state and local taxes as well?
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Federal and state taxes were my thought. As to recovering those costs, states could increase income taxes 3% or so and with the increase of employment and taxes paid-in, the flow of income should be the same. The Federal government will see a cost reduction in the paperwork needed to collect taxes on American goods and the unemployment rate drop will also lead to less costs. Also, if US companies are paying less for materials from within the US, they can increase their exports and create more jobs.

Or they could just cut spending until revenues from job growth increase.
 
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tlmorg02 said:
Federal and state taxes were my thought. As to recovering those costs, states could increase income taxes 3% or so and with the increase of employment and taxes paid-in, the flow of income should be the same. The Federal government will see a cost reduction in the paperwork needed to collect taxes on American goods and the unemployment rate drop will also lead to less costs. Also, if US companies are paying less for materials from within the US, they can increase their exports and create more jobs.

Or they could just cut spending until revenues from job growth increase.
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I think your idea has merit if the states would go along with it and if the cost reduction in tax collection would indeed make up the shortfall in taxes which I am skeptical would equal out. I don't see this as a substitute for the changes that need to be made to restore the progressiveness to our tax system, but I do see it as way to help encourage buying American made products.

Wasteful spending needs to be cut in any case, however, I do not agree with trying to force this through reduced tax revenues, as this is what got us into a real debt problem to begin with when Reagan and the Bushes slashed the tax rates for the top income brackets. This is one of the problems I have with a flat tax.
 
Catawba said:
I think your idea has merit if the states would go along with it and if the cost reduction in tax collection would indeed make up the shortfall in taxes which I am skeptical would equal out. I don't see this as a substitute for the changes that need to be made to restore the progressiveness to our tax system, but I do see it as way to help encourage buying American made products.

Wasteful spending needs to be cut in any case, however, I do not agree with trying to force this through reduced tax revenues, as this is what got us into a real debt problem to begin with when Reagan and the Bushes slashed the tax rates for the top income brackets. This is one of the problems I have with a flat tax.
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I agree. Of course I doubt there are enough American made products to really hurt revenues, but it would be felt. It would definitely help the US auto industry.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
You're just showing how much you don't know.

It's ok - you're not alone. The government only recently started to heavily evaluate the subject becaue even they themselves didn't believe that we still had a serious widespread issue.

But we do - a serious and ignored problem that won't go away no matter how many times you click your heels or donate to the Red Cross.
Click to expand...
really? I have been to various parts of the world and all over the USA I have been in the deepest parts of Appalachia, and the South Bronx and nothing there compares to what i saw in places like Cartegena Columbia, parts of Bolivia etc.
 
Catawba said:
No, it is my position that biggest part of the deficit were expenditures that mostly benefited the rich - unfunded tax cuts for the most wealthy for the last 30 years, the wars, and a military that spends more than the rest of the world combined.

.

This is not about the middle class being spiteful, it is about preventing more and more of the middle class from sliding into poverty.

And your claim that shifting the tax burden from the wealthiest to the middle class will make us more competitive does not stand up to the historical record:

"the massive Republican tax cuts of the 1920s (from 73 to 25 percent) led directly to the Roaring Twenties’ real estate and stock market bubbles, a temporary boom, and then the crash and Republican Great Depression that started in 1929.

Then, from the 1930s to the 1980s, rates on the very rich went back up into the 70 to 90 percent range. As a result, the economy grew steadily, and for the first time in the history of our nation we went 50 years without a crash or major bank failure. It was also during this period that the American worker’s wages increased enough to produce the strongest middle class this nation has ever seen.

Then came Reaganomics." Thom Hartmann | Roll Back the Reagan Tax Cuts

Perhaps some historical perspective of our tax rates would help you see how just how far we have gone in slashing our Progressive tax system:

Charts_Taxes_Income_Top+Rates_Cartoon_Historical-Perspective-on-Top-Tax-Rate.jpg


The flat tax would be an even further shift of tax burden on to the middle class, or as you guys call it, trickling down on us.
Click to expand...

how did the wars benefit the most of those in the top 2 percent of tax payers?

can you prove the idiotic claim that high massive tax rates caused prosperity

good luck if you can and what was the effective rate then versus now?
 
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