• 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 The Rich Pay Too Much Federal Income Taxes

Do The Rich Pay Too Much Income Taxes

  • Total voters
    90
Glen Contrarian said:
What I've said for a long time now, Jack, is that if entry-level workers are paid a living wage, then they can pay their fair share of taxes...which you must admit would take some of the tax burden away from the rich. One could argue that instead of paying taxes, the rich would lose just as much or more because they'd be paying their workers more...but the flip side to that argument is that the lower middle-class and below generally don't have much in the way of savings - they spend pretty much all their income...which goes right back into the pockets of the rich.
Click to expand...

Rising incomes at the bottom will never cause tax rates at the top to be lowered.:peace
 
PoS said:
The so-called poor in America would actually be considered well off if you compare them with other countries so to even label them as "poor" is just socialist propaganda and caters to those who want to maintain the welfare state.

What is Poverty in the United States: Air Conditioning, Cable TV and an Xbox
Click to expand...

The max income to be considered impoverished by the federal government is $11,670 for an individual. Those in the top tax bracket make 34 times that amount. Even after they pay their 'high" taxes they keep at least 22 times that amount. (assuming they take no deductions)

It is because of our welfare state that we don't have large numbers of sick, crippled, seriously malnourished people, including old people and children begging on our streets and we don't have shanty towns like they do in many places without a safety net. We are also free of the riots and rebellions associated with extreme poverty.

sksskks.jpg


hfi_children2.jpg
 
Glen Contrarian said:
I am not aware that there has been any MW increase of 50% in the past...and that means that your question is logically fallacious. I asked you if you can show if there have been many jobs lost in the past due to MW increases - and there HAVE been many MW increases. But your question asks me to prove a negative...which is a logical fallacy.

FYI, it was 1938 when America first introduced the minimum wage - and one could argue that the initial introduction of a minimum wage is by definition a 100% MW hike. So...when the MW was first introduced in 1938, did that drive us further into the Depression? Apparently not.

And Australia - where the minimum wage is over twice what our own is - has not had a recession in over twenty years. Been to Perth three times and Hobart, Tasmania twice...and you'd be amazed to see the similarities in how things work there compared to here...and I never once saw a homeless person there.

I know, I know, your next reply will be "So why don't you move to Australia?" And my reply to that is (1) I've thought about it many times, but I like the weather here better, and (2) what the heck is wrong with looking at what other nations are doing, and if their ideas are working better, putting them into action here? There's nothing wrong with that - we're all every bit as human as each other...and people really are the same all over the world.
Click to expand...

Your ignorance does not necessarily make others queries illogical fallacies, which as a rule tend to be in answer and not question form.

Meanwhile, 1950. Check it out. It's in the "or more" range. And as any logical person would expect, unemployment dropped precipitously. When demand increases due to larger paychecks being spent, hiring is needed to meet the higher demand. But that's basic stuff and very obvious.

One of the less obvious dynamics of rapidly increased worker pay is a lowering in inflation of consumer goods which easily scale to demand (most, if not all, today). Businesses have two ways of profiting: margin and volume. As inflation steadily chips away at buying power, businesses focus on margin. Fewer units must make more per unit. Then something happens, such as wage laws or the union forcing a better wage at the local mill. Stuff is suddenly purchased in higher unit quantity and business responds as it tends to (fear of opportunity loss). Sales are up. Profits are up. Wait. My competitor is doing better, too. Probably better than me. But if I put my most popular seller on special I'll snap up some customers before the competition can respond; some or even many of whom might become regulars once they see that I'm way better because my frozen fries have seasoning salt and not plain salt, which is what I prefer, so everyone will go ape over it. It's marketing that makes me money (lower margin), rather than advertising with that damn yellow pages book that reaches the last three non Google users at the old folks home, and will be way more successful because I know this business and don't need no fancy pants MBA guy to tell me how to make money. (read: small business is the backbone of America, and that backbone is comprised of idiots. People too damn stupid to get a job or see that the business they know nothing about is a long shot at best. But some serendipity (market tanks and steak buyers cut back to crappy burgers and frozen fries with some orange crap sprinkled on them that tastes weird but fits the lower spending needed to avoid foreclosure) shine it's bright light on the moron and he / he is now a business genius and did it by power of sheer will, hard work and above average intelligence for a guy who struggled in high school probably cuz teachers didn't reach his upper intelligence and thus he had no choice but to think about which WWF athlete has the best mullet.)

Job creators. The folks who make life possible and keep us from being USSR or North Korea, who did everything themselves with no help whatsoever from guvmn't, which needs to get out of the way of business and let hardworking businesses that create jobs for kids that need to learn about working so someone later in life can pay them decent, and let business accept EBT since Subway cold sandwiches and burgers with orangish looking fries is the same stuff.

Read: businesses are frightened little rabbits with idiots running them. We need to create an environment that even an idiot can sell stuff. Workers with disposable income is the key.
 
Jack Hays said:
Rising incomes at the bottom will never cause tax rates at the top to be lowered.:peace
Click to expand...

Why not? And please don't say that "those liberals" won't let it happen. You must admit that - just as Dubya argued in 2001 - if we've got a surplus (which would be more likely with the added tax revenue from the entry-level people making a living wage), then a lot of people would support tax cuts since they would think the government no longer needs that extra revenue. The fact that the money would be better used to pay down the debt - which Clinton did with $453B over four years even though the interest accumulated an extra $400B - will probably not register as strongly as another tax break would.
 
Hard Truth said:
The max income to be considered impoverished by the federal government is $11,670 for an individual. Those in the top tax bracket make 34 times that amount. Even after they pay their 'high" taxes they keep at least 22 times that amount. (assuming they take no deductions)
Click to expand...
Whether they keep 22 times that or a million times that why do you care?

It is because of our welfare state that we don't have large numbers of sick, crippled, seriously malnourished people, including old people and children begging on our streets and we don't have shanty towns like they do in many places without a safety net. We are also free of the riots and rebellions associated with extreme poverty.
Click to expand...
Welfare was enacted in the Great Depression. And we never had riots and rebellions when it came to poor people. The fact of the matter is if a so called poor person in the US can afford to buy an Xbox then that person isnt starving. Nobody starves to death in America unless its on purpose.
 
Clem said:
Workers with disposable income is the key.
Click to expand...

The above is the only sentence in your comment that really advances the argument. Entry-level workers normally spend just about every penny of their income - and that would almost certainly not change if they were being paid a living wage. If every entry-level worker's making a living wage, pretty much every bit of that is going back into the economy...and back into the pockets of the rich.

Here's a Harvard study for you - it turns out that Costco, which is paying its workers a living wage, is spending less per employee than Sam's Club, which pays its workers normal Wal-Mart pittances. Now doesn't that look strange? Costco's spending less per employee even though they're paying their workers a lot more? How could that possibly happen?

The High Cost of Low Wages:

Though the businesses are direct competitors and quite similar overall, a remarkable disparity shows up in their wage and benefits structures. The average wage at Costco is $17 an hour. Wal-Mart does not break out the pay of its Sam’s Club workers, but a full-time worker at Wal-Mart makes $10.11 an hour on average, and a variety of sources suggest that Sam’s Club’s pay scale is similar to Wal-Mart’s. A 2005 New York Times article by Steven Greenhouse reported that at $17 an hour, Costco’s average pay is 72% higher than Sam’s Club’s ($9.86 an hour). Interviews that a colleague and I conducted with a dozen Sam’s Club employees in San Francisco and Denver put the average hourly wage at about $10. And a 2004 BusinessWeek article by Stanley Holmes and Wendy Zellner estimated Sam’s Club’s average hourly wage at $11.52.

On the benefits side, 82% of Costco employees have health-insurance coverage, compared with less than half at Wal-Mart. And Costco workers pay just 8% of their health premiums, whereas Wal-Mart workers pay 33% of theirs. Ninety-one percent of Costco’s employees are covered by retirement plans, with the company contributing an annual average of $1,330 per employee, while 64 percent of employees at Sam’s Club are covered, with the company contributing an annual average of $747 per employee.

Costco’s practices are clearly more expensive, but they have an offsetting cost-containment effect: Turnover is unusually low, at 17% overall and just 6% after one year’s employment. In contrast, turnover at Wal-Mart is 44% a year, close to the industry average. In skilled and semi-skilled jobs, the fully loaded cost of replacing a worker who leaves (excluding lost productivity) is typically 1.5 to 2.5 times the worker’s annual salary. To be conservative, let’s assume that the total cost of replacing an hourly employee at Costco or Sam’s Club is only 60% of his or her annual salary. If a Costco employee quits, the cost of replacing him or her is therefore $21,216. If a Sam’s Club employee leaves, the cost is $12,617. At first glance, it may seem that the low-wage approach at Sam’s Club would result in lower turnover costs. But if its turnover rate is the same as Wal-Mart’s, Sam’s Club loses more than twice as many people as Costco does: 44% versus 17%. By this calculation, the total annual cost to Costco of employee churn is $244 million, whereas the total annual cost to Sam’s Club is $612 million. That’s $5,274 per Sam’s Club employee, versus $3,628 per Costco employee.

In return for its generous wages and benefits, Costco gets one of the most loyal and productive workforces in all of retailing, and, probably not coincidentally, the lowest shrinkage (employee theft) figures in the industry. While Sam’s Club and Costco generated $37 billion and $43 billion, respectively, in U.S. sales last year, Costco did it with 38% fewer employees—admittedly, in part by selling to higher-income shoppers and offering more high-end goods. As a result, Costco generated $21,805 in U.S. operating profit per hourly employee, compared with $11,615 at Sam’s Club. Costco’s stable, productive workforce more than offsets its higher costs. (boldface mine)

The above isn't liberal tripe - it's real-world numbers. Pay your workers a living wage, and you'll have more loyal workers and spend a heck of a lot less in turnover costs.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Why not? And please don't say that "those liberals" won't let it happen. You must admit that - just as Dubya argued in 2001 - if we've got a surplus (which would be more likely with the added tax revenue from the entry-level people making a living wage), then a lot of people would support tax cuts since they would think the government no longer needs that extra revenue. The fact that the money would be better used to pay down the debt - which Clinton did with $453B over four years even though the interest accumulated an extra $400B - will probably not register as strongly as another tax break would.
Click to expand...

Those liberals won't let it happen.:mrgreen:
 
Glen Contrarian said:
The above is the only sentence in your comment that really advances the argument. Entry-level workers normally spend just about every penny of their income - and that would almost certainly not change if they were being paid a living wage. If every entry-level worker's making a living wage, pretty much every bit of that is going back into the economy...and back into the pockets of the rich.

Here's a Harvard study for you - it turns out that Costco, which is paying its workers a living wage, is spending less per employee than Sam's Club, which pays its workers normal Wal-Mart pittances. Now doesn't that look strange? Costco's spending less per employee even though they're paying their workers a lot more? How could that possibly happen?

The High Cost of Low Wages:

Though the businesses are direct competitors and quite similar overall, a remarkable disparity shows up in their wage and benefits structures. The average wage at Costco is $17 an hour. Wal-Mart does not break out the pay of its Sam’s Club workers, but a full-time worker at Wal-Mart makes $10.11 an hour on average, and a variety of sources suggest that Sam’s Club’s pay scale is similar to Wal-Mart’s. A 2005 New York Times article by Steven Greenhouse reported that at $17 an hour, Costco’s average pay is 72% higher than Sam’s Club’s ($9.86 an hour). Interviews that a colleague and I conducted with a dozen Sam’s Club employees in San Francisco and Denver put the average hourly wage at about $10. And a 2004 BusinessWeek article by Stanley Holmes and Wendy Zellner estimated Sam’s Club’s average hourly wage at $11.52.

On the benefits side, 82% of Costco employees have health-insurance coverage, compared with less than half at Wal-Mart. And Costco workers pay just 8% of their health premiums, whereas Wal-Mart workers pay 33% of theirs. Ninety-one percent of Costco’s employees are covered by retirement plans, with the company contributing an annual average of $1,330 per employee, while 64 percent of employees at Sam’s Club are covered, with the company contributing an annual average of $747 per employee.

Costco’s practices are clearly more expensive, but they have an offsetting cost-containment effect: Turnover is unusually low, at 17% overall and just 6% after one year’s employment. In contrast, turnover at Wal-Mart is 44% a year, close to the industry average. In skilled and semi-skilled jobs, the fully loaded cost of replacing a worker who leaves (excluding lost productivity) is typically 1.5 to 2.5 times the worker’s annual salary. To be conservative, let’s assume that the total cost of replacing an hourly employee at Costco or Sam’s Club is only 60% of his or her annual salary. If a Costco employee quits, the cost of replacing him or her is therefore $21,216. If a Sam’s Club employee leaves, the cost is $12,617. At first glance, it may seem that the low-wage approach at Sam’s Club would result in lower turnover costs. But if its turnover rate is the same as Wal-Mart’s, Sam’s Club loses more than twice as many people as Costco does: 44% versus 17%. By this calculation, the total annual cost to Costco of employee churn is $244 million, whereas the total annual cost to Sam’s Club is $612 million. That’s $5,274 per Sam’s Club employee, versus $3,628 per Costco employee.

In return for its generous wages and benefits, Costco gets one of the most loyal and productive workforces in all of retailing, and, probably not coincidentally, the lowest shrinkage (employee theft) figures in the industry. While Sam’s Club and Costco generated $37 billion and $43 billion, respectively, in U.S. sales last year, Costco did it with 38% fewer employees—admittedly, in part by selling to higher-income shoppers and offering more high-end goods. As a result, Costco generated $21,805 in U.S. operating profit per hourly employee, compared with $11,615 at Sam’s Club. Costco’s stable, productive workforce more than offsets its higher costs. (boldface mine)

The above isn't liberal tripe - it's real-world numbers. Pay your workers a living wage, and you'll have more loyal workers and spend a heck of a lot less in turnover costs.
Click to expand...

I think we're on the same side. I support higher wages for economic reasons, In fact I think a significant increase in the FMW, in the range of 65% as a start and 85% within two years is vital and the only way to get folks who want and need jobs working. The labor participation rate is in dire straights. And wealth / income polarization continues to rise and we're not far off of where large South American economies were before collapsing quickly into dual economies which has taken them decades to now climb out of whilst we sprint toward the economic disaster they're overcoming. And that's a global economic doom scenario with the US economy being the driver of the world economy.

And Obama has been a nightmare. In the face of the greatest crisis since the Depression he did next to nothing but bail out securities markets. Zip on tax policy. And shrinking middle class income with the FMW last raised on Bush 43's watch. Plus cap gains tax is absurdly low, which is why growth has been so anemic.

Godspeed his replacement and this time I hope we elect a Democrat in spirit and action and not merely campaign rhetoric.
 
Clem said:
I think we're on the same side. I support higher wages for economic reasons, In fact I think a significant increase in the FMW, in the range of 65% as a start and 85% within two years is vital and the only way to get folks who want and need jobs working. The labor participation rate is in dire straights. And wealth / income polarization continues to rise and we're not far off of where large South American economies were before collapsing quickly into dual economies which has taken them decades to now climb out of whilst we sprint toward the economic disaster they're overcoming. And that's a global economic doom scenario with the US economy being the driver of the world economy.

And Obama has been a nightmare. In the face of the greatest crisis since the Depression he did next to nothing but bail out securities markets. Zip on tax policy. And shrinking middle class income with the FMW last raised on Bush 43's watch. Plus cap gains tax is absurdly low, which is why growth has been so anemic.

Godspeed his replacement and this time I hope we elect a Democrat in spirit and action and not merely campaign rhetoric.
Click to expand...

Actually I think that history will be rather kind to Obama...and not so kind to those who strove so hard to make sure that he could accomplish as little as possible during his time in office. All the gripes you listed about him above can be ascribed to two factors - Obama's determination to reach out to the GOP to make things happen for so long (see Boehner's "I got 98% of what I wanted in the debt ceiling negotiation!" and the TP hated him for 'giving away' the 2%), and the GOP's intransigence which they planned from the get-go, even from the night before his first inauguration.

I supported Hillary against Obama in the 2008 election - I was an alternate WA state delegate for her - and I said even then that I thought that Obama was the future of the Democratic party...but also that America wasn't ready for him yet - he needed someone to pave the way for him first, to get America used to the idea before he took center stage, and that was why I supported Hillary and not Obama. I still stand by what I said then. Hillary not being able to be the president before him, I think, is a major factor in why he wasn't able to advance an agenda that both you and I could have really supported wholeheartedly.
 
Sean.McDonnell said:
The answer to this question depends on what one thinks is the responsibility of the wealthy to the state, and what our tax dollars should be spent on. As a left leaning man, I believe that any government should be evaluated on how they take care of their poorest citizens. In line with this idea, no, I don't think the wealthy pay to much. When you compare the tax structure in the United States to other nations with similar quality of life ratings, it is clear that they pay a fair amount. I mean of course we would be comparing ourselves to socialist systems, but hey, that's the way the rest of the world has gone, and I think they're on to something...
Click to expand...

Keep in mind in addition to helping the poor this money is also being spent on things like the drug war which would be more reasonably restricted if there were less income in the pipe.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Actually I think that history will be rather kind to Obama...and not so kind to those who strove so hard to make sure that he could accomplish as little as possible during his time in office. All the gripes you listed about him above can be ascribed to two factors - Obama's determination to reach out to the GOP to make things happen for so long (see Boehner's "I got 98% of what I wanted in the debt ceiling negotiation!" and the TP hated him for 'giving away' the 2%), and the GOP's intransigence which they planned from the get-go, even from the night before his first inauguration.

I supported Hillary against Obama in the 2008 election - I was an alternate WA state delegate for her - and I said even then that I thought that Obama was the future of the Democratic party...but also that America wasn't ready for him yet - he needed someone to pave the way for him first, to get America used to the idea before he took center stage, and that was why I supported Hillary and not Obama. I still stand by what I said then. Hillary not being able to be the president before him, I think, is a major factor in why he wasn't able to advance an agenda that both you and I could have really supported wholeheartedly.
Click to expand...

How history views Obama is not why I voted and campaigned for him and gave the federal maximum (first time; second time I gave a $1 and a demand for leadership on the issue he said were vital which they indeed are).

I voted for swift reversal of Bush 43's trickle down redux, and not what in fact the comparatively poor performing president has done and even actively promoted: continuation and even some expansion of Bush 43 policies. History books do not solve economic crisis. Leadership does.

And Obama has failed to lead on a single policy. Not one, even having been given the House and a Senate super-majority.
 
Clem said:
How history views Obama is not why I voted and campaigned for him and gave the federal maximum (first time; second time I gave a $1 and a demand for leadership on the issue he said were vital which they indeed are).

I voted for swift reversal of Bush 43's trickle down redux, and not what in fact the comparatively poor performing president has done and even actively promoted: continuation and even some expansion of Bush 43 policies. History books do not solve economic crisis. Leadership does.

And Obama has failed to lead on a single policy. Not one, even having been given the House and a Senate super-majority.
Click to expand...

He had a supermajority in the Senate for precisely 62 in-session days. After Scott Brown took office, the filibusters began in earnest...and you know the rest from there.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
He had a supermajority in the Senate for precisely 62 in-session days. After Scott Brown took office, the filibusters began in earnest...and you know the rest from there.
Click to expand...

Interesting.

If being an ineffective leader, hamstrung by inexperience, and determined to use wedge issues to divide the country down race and economic lines is what you mean by "know the rest from there" then you have a point.
 
ocean515 said:
Interesting.

If being an ineffective leader, hamstrung by inexperience, and determined to use wedge issues to divide the country down race and economic lines is what you mean by "know the rest from there" then you have a point.
Click to expand...

Ah, I forgot - it's okay for Republican and conservative pundits and politicians to use race-baiting - and sometimes outright racist - comments on a near-weekly basis...but when we on the Left point it out, well, THAT's dividing the nation down racial lines.

And it's okay for Republican and conservative pundits to say how lazy and worthless the poor must be - after all, if they're poor it must be because of something they did and did not do, and it certainly can't be because there's three people seeking work for every job that's available...but when we on the left point out how it was NOT the poor who caused the Great Recession and threw millions out of work, and that often there's no jobs for people to get, well, THAT's dividing the nation down economic lines.

Good grief.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Ah, I forgot - it's okay for Republican and conservative pundits and politicians to use race-baiting - and sometimes outright racist - comments on a near-weekly basis...but when we on the Left point it out, well, THAT's dividing the nation down racial lines.

And it's okay for Republican and conservative pundits to say how lazy and worthless the poor must be - after all, if they're poor it must be because of something they did and did not do, and it certainly can't be because there's three people seeking work for every job that's available...but when we on the left point out how it was NOT the poor who caused the Great Recession and threw millions out of work, and that often there's no jobs for people to get, well, THAT's dividing the nation down economic lines.

Good grief.
Click to expand...

LOL

"They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Along with this gem above from then candidate Obama, and with the JournoList race baiting offensive revealed, it's well know fact where race has fit into the Progressive plan.
 
No. The Bush era's tax BREAKS expired for the corporations and exorbitantly wealthy and I feel that's what this whole struggle has been about. President Obama would not continue these tax breaks for the rich and so the rich in turn, through the Republican party, have decided to oppose what our government has been trying to do to help America overall. Just like when you have religion mixed up in government and it is a conflict of interests, when the corporations are calling the shots, they are going to look out for their own interests. Not only should the tax loopholes be closed up when it comes to the ultra wealthy, there should be more regulations, like when these "shark tank" billionaires are sending jobs overseas, again, to look out for their own wealth and not the very wonderful country they live and thrive in.
 
waynep said:
No. The Bush era's tax BREAKS expired for the corporations and exorbitantly wealthy and I feel that's what this whole struggle has been about. President Obama would not continue these tax breaks for the rich and so the rich in turn, through the Republican party, have decided to oppose what our government has been trying to do to help America overall. Just like when you have religion mixed up in government and it is a conflict of interests, when the corporations are calling the shots, they are going to look out for their own interests. Not only should the tax loopholes be closed up when it comes to the ultra wealthy, there should be more regulations, like when these "shark tank" billionaires are sending jobs overseas, again, to look out for their own wealth and not the very wonderful country they live and thrive in.
Click to expand...

For a first post, it's evident you have been taught well. The picture you have been allowed to see is quite different from reality.
 
waynep said:
No. The Bush era's tax BREAKS expired for the corporations and exorbitantly wealthy and I feel that's what this whole struggle has been about. President Obama would not continue these tax breaks for the rich and so the rich in turn, through the Republican party, have decided to oppose what our government has been trying to do to help America overall. Just like when you have religion mixed up in government and it is a conflict of interests, when the corporations are calling the shots, they are going to look out for their own interests. Not only should the tax loopholes be closed up when it comes to the ultra wealthy, there should be more regulations, like when these "shark tank" billionaires are sending jobs overseas, again, to look out for their own wealth and not the very wonderful country they live and thrive in.
Click to expand...

:lamo
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom