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How much do you care about taxing income

What fits you best

  • Conservative - Decrease the Low/Middle class, Increase "Rich"

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • Conservative - Leave all the same

    Votes: 3 30.0%
  • Liberal - Decrease all across the board

    Votes: 2 20.0%
  • Liberal - Leave all the same

    Votes: 4 40.0%

  • Total voters
    10
Neither.
Obama, stand up to those rich ******** and make them pay.
35% up to 300K
36% up to 500K
37% up to 700K
and 40% for the millionaires.
If they don't like this, then suggest the old 1949 tax rates, where the rate was 90% for the millionaires.

Minimum wage was 43-cents an hour in 1949. Not quite apples/apples. Also interesting -- the tax rate for people making $4,000 a year at that time was 16.6%. Yeah! Let's go back to that!!
 
Neither.
Obama, stand up to those rich ******** and make them pay.
35% up to 300K
36% up to 500K
37% up to 700K
and 40% for the millionaires.
If they don't like this, then suggest the old 1949 tax rates, where the rate was 90% for the millionaires.

As with kandahar's thread, "neither" is not a choice here. This is a "If you had to choose one, which would you choose" type of situation.

By choosing "neither" you're essentially defaulting to maintaining the status quo anyways. What you go on to say and talk about isn't the point or the topic of this thread.
 
Minimum wage was 43-cents an hour in 1949. Not quite apples/apples. Also interesting -- the tax rate for people making $4,000 a year at that time was 16.6%. Yeah! Let's go back to that!!

In real dollar terms: 43 cents in 1949= $3.93 in 2010, while $4000= $32,080 in 2010.
 
Neither.
Obama, stand up to those rich ******** and make them pay.
35% up to 300K
36% up to 500K
37% up to 700K
and 40% for the millionaires.
If they don't like this, then suggest the old 1949 tax rates, where the rate was 90% for the millionaires.

you lefties love a system where your masters can buy the votes of the many by promising them that only those making over X amount will face tax hikes

how about you paying the same amount out of your next dollar as a millionaire? He will still pay many more times than you do and yet he gets absolutely no additional benefits from what the income tax pays for than you do
 
you lefties love a system where your masters can buy the votes of the many by promising them that only those making over X amount will face tax hikes

how about you paying the same amount out of your next dollar as a millionaire? He will still pay many more times than you do and yet he gets absolutely no additional benefits from what the income tax pays for than you do

The millionaire buys peace. Its value is incalculable.

Although I don't strictly agree with the sentiment espoused.
 
The millionaire buys peace. Its value is incalculable.

Although I don't strictly agree with the sentiment espoused.

are you saying the lower classes will revolt if there isn't punitive taxation on the rich? didn't happen in 1920. Buying off rioters is stupid. SHooting them is the proper response
 
That statement sounds good on its surface, but when I really think about it, I run into some questions.

1. Would those people be able to thrive without the additional support?
2. Are there primary, secondary, and tertiery benefits to social assistance that we should be considering?
3. What proof do we have that this arrangement is more or less optimal than a smaller government. Remember, pretty much all successful first world countries have a massive government and massive social programs.
4. If benefits had to increase to make up the short fall, would these people even notice?

1. For a great many of the infamous 47%, I'm sure any tax would be a sacrifice of sorts. But that's taxes are, a sacrifice we all make to fund the government that provides us with essential and/or valuable services in order to create a better society. In fact the whole notion of government is based on the idea of sacrifice. We sacrifice a portion of our personal sovereignty to government to preserve the rest of our sovereignty. And in my personal vision of how this would be implemented the bottom earners would pay a fairly minimal percentage. No more than 5%. Just something to get them in the game with the rest of us.

2. I'm not advocating eliminating social assistance, and I don't think any other reasonable, realistic person here is either. But I think there is a real problem when you start to have two classes of people: folks who pay for entitlements and folks who recieve entitlements. It's not hard to see how this is a formula for abuse, especially if the second group were to ever become larger than the first.

I think the following quotes are pretty succinct in summing up my issues with the current situation.

"A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it."

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

-Alexis de Tocqueville

3. Not sure how this relates to the issue of wanting everyone to pay some form of income tax, even if it is minimal. Perhaps you could clarify.

4. You're probably not surprised to hear that I wouldn't be in favor of increasing benefits to make up the shortfall. But even if we did, the poor would still have an incentive to want to see spending kept at a minimum, since they're taxes would go down as spending goes down, giving them even more income.
 
Really depends on how we define rich. If it means adding another bracket charging an extra 5% for millionaires, that's fine. If it means jacking the rake for $200k earners up by 5%, then hell 2 da naws.
 
Really depends on how we define rich. If it means adding another bracket charging an extra 5% for millionaires, that's fine. If it means jacking the rake for $200k earners up by 5%, then hell 2 da naws.

I oppose a progressive income tax for several reasons

the main one is buying the votes of non-tax payers or low bracket payers by promising them government benefits that increased top rates on the "rich" will have to pay for. Such a system is doomed to fail because the politicians have to keep bribing the lower classes with spending and appealing to class envy

secondly the rich already pay too much even with a flat tax but at least a flat tax doesn't allow the masses to jack up taxes without feeling some pain and unless the masses feel some pain, they will never require the governmnet to spend less on them
 
1. For a great many of the infamous 47%, I'm sure any tax would be a sacrifice of sorts. But that's taxes are, a sacrifice we all make to fund the government that provides us with essential and/or valuable services in order to create a better society. In fact the whole notion of government is based on the idea of sacrifice. We sacrifice a portion of our personal sovereignty to government to preserve the rest of our sovereignty. And in my personal vision of how this would be implemented the bottom earners would pay a fairly minimal percentage. No more than 5%. Just something to get them in the game with the rest of us.

Thats the libertarian notion of it. I think government is something humans create naturally and is in many ways instinctual for us. (even the most basic tribal society inevitably forms a government, even if it is a very simple one)

2. I'm not advocating eliminating social assistance, and I don't think any other reasonable, realistic person here is either. But I think there is a real problem when you start to have two classes of people: folks who pay for entitlements and folks who recieve entitlements. It's not hard to see how this is a formula for abuse, especially if the second group were to ever become larger than the first.

In the end, any social assistance is going to mean that there will be people who get more than they give. That is what social assistance is.

I think the following quotes are pretty succinct in summing up my issues with the current situation.

3. Not sure how this relates to the issue of wanting everyone to pay some form of income tax, even if it is minimal. Perhaps you could clarify.

4. You're probably not surprised to hear that I wouldn't be in favor of increasing benefits to make up the shortfall. But even if we did, the poor would still have an incentive to want to see spending kept at a minimum, since they're taxes would go down as spending goes down, giving them even more income.

My personal view is that social spending is ok, but going in debt for it isn't.

I oppose a progressive income tax for several reasons

the main one is buying the votes of non-tax payers or low bracket payers by promising them government benefits that increased top rates on the "rich" will have to pay for. Such a system is doomed to fail because the politicians have to keep bribing the lower classes with spending and appealing to class envy

secondly the rich already pay too much even with a flat tax but at least a flat tax doesn't allow the masses to jack up taxes without feeling some pain and unless the masses feel some pain, they will never require the governmnet to spend less on them

Talking about killing off large segments of the population is a no-no (isn't that something that people accuse communists of?). Because, trust me, in a nonsocial assistance situation, we will be like we were in the 20s and the nasty things that were brewing.
 
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Thats the libertarian notion of it. I think government is something humans create naturally and is in many ways instinctual for us. (even the most basic tribal society inevitably forms a government, even if it is a very simple one)



In the end, any social assistance is going to mean that there will be people who get more than they give. That is what social assistance is.



My personal view is that social spending is ok, but going in debt for it isn't.



Talking about killing off large segments of the population is a no-no (isn't that something that people accuse communists of?). Because, trust me, in a nonsocial assistance situation, we will be like we were in the 20s and the nasty things that were brewing.

I don't think a flat tax which still has the rich paying far far more than any objective concept of fair share or what they use is not going to lead to the entitlement addicts revolting. same with knocking the clinton tax hikes and the idiotic double taxation on dividends down to more reasonable levels. Maybe if we weaned people off of dependence on others to pay for them, the danger you speak of would lessen because the way things are going, the dems have to keep spending on their voters in order to try to win elections and the rich cannot keep up with that spending so one day a revolt probably will happen

when the rich refuse or cannot pay yet another tax hike and the dems no longer can pander to millions of people who have grown up expecting such entitlements.

If you don't have a bird feeder in the area you live in some birds will starve to death in very bad conditions or permanently leave the area. HOwever, if you put out a bird feeder for several years and then one day stop filling it, most of the birds in the area will starve to death
 
I don't think a flat tax which still has the rich paying far far more than any objective concept of fair share or what they use is not going to lead to the entitlement addicts revolting. same with knocking the clinton tax hikes and the idiotic double taxation on dividends down to more reasonable levels. Maybe if we weaned people off of dependence on others to pay for them, the danger you speak of would lessen because the way things are going, the dems have to keep spending on their voters in order to try to win elections and the rich cannot keep up with that spending so one day a revolt probably will happen

when the rich refuse or cannot pay yet another tax hike and the dems no longer can pander to millions of people who have grown up expecting such entitlements.

If you don't have a bird feeder in the area you live in some birds will starve to death in very bad conditions or permanently leave the area. HOwever, if you put out a bird feeder for several years and then one day stop filling it, most of the birds in the area will starve to death

If people are hungry enough and they do not feel like they have a chance to make their lives better with the current system. They will find a way to do so outside the current system. Conditions were bad before the new deal (while birds can find food, so the situation is different), so this is not a bird feeder scenario.
 
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This is something that hit me while reading kandahar's interesting "how much do you care about the budget" post.

Conservatives...if faced with the choice of lowering lower and middle class taxes but raising the rich's taxes, or keeping everyone at the place they're at now, which would you pick?

Liberals...if faced with the choice of lowering everyones taxes, or keeping eveyrone at the place they're at now, which would you pick?

This is a general thing, not necessarily relating directly to your choic during the economic crisis.

For me, I think your last sentence is the most important. If faced with the choice of lowering everyone's taxes or keeping them where they are now...I'd probably want them lowered across the board in the short-term, but left at their current level in the long-term.

Tax cuts can provide SOME relief from recession, albeit not nearly as effectively as quantitative easing or (best of all) more government spending. So in the short term I can definitely see the virtue in keeping taxes low to deal with our current economic problems. However, in the long term we need to pay for our government. If my only options are to PERMANENTLY lower taxes for everyone or leave them alone, I'd rather leave them where they are now.
 
I'm somewhat alarmed by the number of people in this thread bashing the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has strong bipartisan support in Congress and strong support from economists of all ideologies. The EITC is one of the most effective ways to alleviate poverty while simultaneously encouraging the poor to be productive citizens. I'm especially appalled by so many conservatives voicing opposition to negative (or zero) taxation for the poorest classes of society. Surely you believe that tax cuts are more effective than government programs for encouraging success and reducing dependence on the government, no?
 
from Kandahar

The EITC is one of the most effective ways to alleviate poverty while simultaneously encouraging the poor to be productive citizens.

That tells you why many here are bashing the credit and do not support it.
 
I'm somewhat alarmed by the number of people in this thread bashing the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has strong bipartisan support in Congress and strong support from economists of all ideologies. The EITC is one of the most effective ways to alleviate poverty while simultaneously encouraging the poor to be productive citizens. I'm especially appalled by so many conservatives voicing opposition to negative (or zero) taxation for the poorest classes of society. Surely you believe that tax cuts are more effective than government programs for encouraging success and reducing dependence on the government, no?

I was reading about the EITC on wiki and saw this: "Today, the EITC is one of the largest anti-poverty tools in the United States (despite the fact that most income measures, including the poverty rate, do not account for the credit)."

Can that really be true? WTF is wrong with the people who calculate the poverty rate?
 
I was reading about the EITC on wiki and saw this: "Today, the EITC is one of the largest anti-poverty tools in the United States (despite the fact that most income measures, including the poverty rate, do not account for the credit)."

Can that really be true? WTF is wrong with the people who calculate the poverty rate?

I think it's pretty rare in general for government assistance (aside from direct payments such as social security checks) to be included in measures of income. I'm pretty sure things like food stamps, subsidized housing, or student loans aren't included either. I agree, it presents a very distorted picture of the actual poverty situation in this country.

I think that the EITC is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs out there. A lot of conservatives love it because it rewards the poor for doing well instead of encouraging dependence, and a lot of liberals love it because it alleviates poverty. At the very least, it's much more efficient than traditional social programs because it doesn't require a lot of government overhead to administer it.
 
I think it's pretty rare in general for government assistance (aside from direct payments such as social security checks) to be included in measures of income. I'm pretty sure things like food stamps, subsidized housing, or student loans aren't included either. I agree, it presents a very distorted picture of the actual poverty situation in this country.

I guess I can understand why they wouldn't include things like subsidized housing or student loans, but I'd think it would be pretty easy to adjust for the EITC or even food stamps.

I think that the EITC is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs out there. A lot of conservatives love it because it rewards the poor for doing well instead of encouraging dependence, and a lot of liberals love it because it alleviates poverty. At the very least, it's much more efficient than traditional social programs because it doesn't require a lot of government overhead to administer it.

I don't really have much of a problem with it, though I can understand some of the opposition. It just seems a little off that such a large portion of the country isn't paying income tax. Not sure that the alternative would be any better, but there you have it.
 
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