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Do you think Obama wants to redistribute wealth?

Do you think Obama wants to redistribute wealth?

  • Total voters
    95
comedy4all said:
Oh yes let’s play the “some” and “not all” game.
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I'm not familiar with that game...logically, "some" means "at least one," and "not all" means "at least not one."

comedy4all said:
It is a possibility that “some” of the people that are considered rich got that way by stealing their money.
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Certainly.

comedy4all said:
Although the vast majority of them did it the legitimate way.
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How do you know? If what you described right after this is the "legitimate way," then I am not very sure that most of the wealthy got their wealth that way. In fact, I think probably most did not, especially in the case of the "super rich."

comedy4all said:
I am also going to add my response to another thread, because I think that it applies here.
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I'm not sure how. I agree that my experience accords somewhat with yours, though I have known some dirt-poor people who really had suffered misfortune after misfortune, and who were trying their best to turn things around and just not having any luck.

That said, I think your discussion avoids some important points. First, while I acknowledge I was the first to use the term "poor," I meant it simply to mean "not-rich." I think most of the theft, fraud, and embezzlement has occurred against the middle class and former middle class.

Second, I'm not sure I understand the motivation for your discussion. The issue hardly has anything to do with the super-poor, so much as it does with the fact that a person in America can now be both capable and willing to work, and find only table scraps for their efforts, while people like Donald Trump can go swimming in diamond-encrusted swimming pools or own 25 huge mansions. It appears to most people (and to me) that those people--i.e. the super-rich or even the rich--got there not through hard work, but through manipulation of a system. At least, few of them worked very much harder than people much lower on the rungs of the ladder. And while I agree that we cannot and should not equalize everyone, there has to be some serious attention to this point: we should reward hard work, not manipulation of a byzantine financial system.

There is a finite amount of wealth, both in absolute and time-dependent terms. That is, there is a sum total amount of wealth that can ever be produced from the planet, and a total per unit time that actually can be produced. Whether what is produced matches what can be produced is perhaps questionable, though I do not think the average middle-class worker can affect that situation very much at all.

There is also a social contract. Fewer and fewer people are finding that they would join that contract in America, given any choice about the matter and given its current conditions of enforcement.

Finally, money and wealth are not necessarily equivalent. But money is supposed to represent wealth. This fact can be exploited, and has been exploited historically, for the illegitimate gain of a lucky or privileged few.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we should ignore these points at our great peril. Societies that have in the past (and most top-of-the-heap societies have) have dealt with increasingly bad consequences, and eventual collapse. Anyone with any grasp of history should see that many of those "increasingly bad consequences" are now manifest in our society.
 
LiberalAvenger said:
How can the rule of law be dishonest? Like taxation is stealing?
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Its true because that is the factual reality

Its dishonest because its contrary to the clear intent of the constitution
 
TurtleDude said:
Its true because that is the factual reality

Its dishonest because its contrary to the clear intent of the constitution
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It appears that you prematurely ended your post before you put up the verifiable evidence for your claims.
 
I think he wants to punish wealth, tax it and then send those funds into social programs.
 
haymarket said:
It appears that you prematurely ended your post before you put up the verifiable evidence for your claims.
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ITs called an opinion. And why do you demand proof from others when you never supply any in support of your opinions?
 
TurtleDude said:
ITs called an opinion. And why do you demand proof from others when you never supply any in support of your opinions?
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Its not an opinion when you call it FACTUAL REALITY. That was your claim. I will be glad to show you the support for any statement of fact that I make.
 
Just curious...what the heck would we call "trickle down economics"...that in itself is redistributing the wealth in this country.
 
Fruityfact said:
Just curious...what the heck would we call "trickle down economics"...that in itself is redistributing the wealth in this country.
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You seem not to get that REDistribution is the government taking wealth and giving it to voters to buy votes

Trickle down does not require any government action whatsoever
 
TurtleDude said:
You seem not to get that REDistribution is the government taking wealth and giving it to voters to buy votes

Trickle down does not require any government action whatsoever
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Well the facade that is Trickle Down involves cutting taxes on the top..well the lost revenue is off set by raising taxes on everyone else(or increasing debt as we've seen)
That is redistributing the tax burden=redistributing money.
 
Fruityfact said:
Well the facade that is Trickle Down involves cutting taxes on the top..well the lost revenue is off set by raising taxes on everyone else(or increasing debt as we've seen)
That is redistributing the tax burden=redistributing money.
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if there were no taxes on income it would still happen. Income redistribution cannot happen without government.

You seem to assume high taxes on the productive is a given
 
TurtleDude said:
if there were no taxes on income it would still happen. Income redistribution cannot happen without government.

You seem to assume high taxes on the productive is a given
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Well the reality is that those rates were the norm...the rates we have now are LOW
 
Fruityfact said:
Well the reality is that those rates were the norm...the rates we have now are LOW
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that is moronic. For more than half of this country's history we did not even have a tax on income. The current Obama rates have lasted longer than the Clinton tax hikes. Over the last 32 years, the clinton era was an aberration in terms of being TOO High
 
TurtleDude said:
that is moronic. For more than half of this country's history we did not even have a tax on income. The current Obama rates have lasted longer than the Clinton tax hikes. Over the last 32 years, the clinton era was an aberration in terms of being TOO High
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federalinc.jpg Clinton's horribly high taxes which really weren't that high..under which the economy grew dramatically
 
Fruityfact said:
View attachment 67135033 Clinton's horribly high taxes which really weren't that high..under which the economy grew dramatically
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where is the 1790-1913 graph. And you haven't figured out that some of those high marginal tax rates have far far lower effective rates

BTW if you like 70% rates you should pay them too
 
TurtleDude said:
where is the 1790-1913 graph. And you haven't figured out that some of those high marginal tax rates have far far lower effective rates

BTW if you like 70% rates you should pay them too
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I find it very hard to believe that there was a 90% income tax (for ~20 years), on anyone. What is that tax bracket?
 
TurtleDude said:
where is the 1790-1913 graph. And you haven't figured out that some of those high marginal tax rates have far far lower effective rates

BTW if you like 70% rates you should pay them too
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Great argument..bravo turtle i expect nothing less from ya.
Anyways i'm not advocating for tax rates like that anyways.
The point being that our current tax bracket is LOW..trickle down itself was redistribution of wealth
 
ecofarm said:
I find it very hard to believe that there was a 90% income tax (for ~20 years), on anyone. What is that tax bracket?
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that was the top tax bracket...out of 24 tax brackets..

I believe it was on earnings over 200,000 bucks ( married separate), 400,000 ( married, joint) and , 300,000 ( head of household)
 
Thrilla said:
that was the top tax bracket...out of 24 tax brackets..

I believe it was on earnings over 200,000 bucks ( married separate), 400,000 ( married, joint) and , 300,000 ( head of household)
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So if one made 200k, one took home 20k after federal income tax alone was deducted? I don't believe that. What would be the point of working anything but a menial job that one doesn't have to care about.

What was the tax bracket on 30k? Would I net the same?!
 
ecofarm said:
So if one made 400k (married, joint), they took home 40k? I don't believe that. What would be the point of working anything but a menial job that one doesn't have to care about.
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First, anything above 400k would be taxed at 90% because we have progressive taxation.
But regardless as turtle mentioned earlier the effective tax rates were no where near as high as the marginal rates
 
Fruityfact said:
Great argument..bravo turtle i expect nothing less from ya.
Anyways i'm not advocating for tax rates like that anyways.
The point being that our current tax bracket is LOW..trickle down itself was redistribution of wealth
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tax revenue, as a percentage of GDP in 1955 ( under the old 20-90% marginal rates) was 7.3% for individuals, 4.5% for corporations
in 2011... it was 7.3% for individuals, 1.2% for corporations

the high for individuals was in 2000.. at 10.2% of GDP
the high for corporations was in 1945 at 7.2% of GDP

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP
 
Fruityfact said:
First, anything above 400k would be taxed at 90% because we have progressive taxation.
But regardless as turtle mentioned earlier the effective tax rates were no where near as high as the marginal rates
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I know what progressive taxation is, I went to HS. My question is, what tax rates did 20k, 30k and 50k pay? Those are probably more relevant. See, 90% is ridiculous and most people agree. But was the middle class actually paying income tax back then? If so, that's the lesson to learn from that particular past.
 
Thrilla said:
tax revenue, as a percentage of GDP in 1955 ( under the old 20-90% marginal rates) was 7.3% for individuals, 4.5% for corporations
in 2011... it was 7.3% for individuals, 1.2% for corporations

the high for individuals was in 2000.. at 10.2% of GDP
the high for corporations was in 1945 at 7.2% of GDP

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP
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Thanks for the numbers..They help show that the burden is increasingly falling on those not in the top tax brackets or those not being a large corporation(which i personally think is bad)
 
ecofarm said:
So if one made 200k, one took home 20k after federal income tax alone was deducted? I don't believe that. What would be the point of working anything but a menial job that one doesn't have to care about.

What was the tax bracket on 30k? Would I net the same?!
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only earning over 400k are taxes at 90%... the earnings below 400k were taxed at 23 different rates.

you make 30 k...
ok...

from 0 to 2,000 - 22,2%
from 2,001 to 4,000 -24.6%
from 4,001 to 6,000 - 29%
from 6,001 to 8,000 - 34%
from 8,001 to 10,000 -38%
from 10,001, to 12,000 -42%
from 12,001 to 14,000 - 48%
from 14,001 to 16,000 - 53%
from 16,0001 to 18,000 -56%
from 18,001 to 20,000 - 59%
from 20,001 to 22,000 - 62%
from 22,001 to 26,000 - 66%
from 26,001 to 32,000 - 67%

you first 2k was taxed at 22.2 %, the 2nd 2k was taxed at 24.6%.. and so on and so on... until you reached the 67% bracket on your final 4 grand

this is all before deductions, of course... these are marginal rates, not effective rates.
 
Navy Pride said:
What do you think and why would he want to do that?
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I think Obama knows that America must have a robust Middle Class. How he goes about that is problematic unless he can change the tax incentives so US profits abroad are repatriated for investment HERE in the US.
 
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