Obama and Class Warfare

teamosil said:

Well, when I say that the rich benefit more from society, obviously I'm not talking about getting more checks in the mail from the government or whatever. I'm saying that they draw more benefit- they gain more money- through their interactions with society than poor people do. By definition.

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Of course you base it on that-its easier to justify hiking taxes on the rich by speculating they get more benefits than using the tired FROM EACH ACCORDING TO THEIR ABILITY nonsense other far lefties use

but your argument has no merit. First you cannot prove your claim and you have admitted that a measurement of direct spending or benefits would defeat your belief so you have to engage in speculation and impossible to measure items

and it also fails because if taxes are based on benefits you would have to argue that the top one percent benefits more than everyone from the bottom up to about the 92nd percentile because the Richest one percent pay more federal income taxes than those 92 percent of the population and certainly do not use nor benefit more from all the services paid for by the federal income tax

jimbo said:

Deciding who benefits the most from society based on income is extremely subjective and based on your definition of benefit. That some benefit more from the system than others individually is a given. That groups do the same is not. I would use a couple of examples:

In my own case, I began appraising in the mid 80's. At the time my work was either handwritten or typed by a typist. After the increase in computer use and the decrease in prices, I was able to go out on my own, and by 1989 I had increased my income 10 fold and in the process provided high paying jobs for 10-15 people and was able to hold my prices on my services for 15 years. This was all made possible by Gates, Dell, and the others involved in the early days of modern computer technology. and those mean evil bankers who provided my start up capital. So who benefited the most? Me, Gates, those I hired, my customers? I submit all benefited.

I also have a few acquaintances who were involved in the early days of the IT revolution. All have made a lot of money. Some have made billions. Obviously they benefited from the market system. In the meantime, very few of the so called poor in the US do without cell phones, TV, or other IT perks. A couple of them have donated large amounts of money to various causes, Some have major buildings and schools named after them. So who benefited the most? To a poor person, a cell phone is probably at least as important as Paul Allen's 200 ft boat is to him. To a student those donations to schools probably mean more.

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Any money you make is benefit you're gaining from interacting with society. That's what money is. Whether you consider that to be more the result of your efforts or somebody else's isn't really relevant to the question of how much benefit you're drawing. If society were allowed to fall apart, you wouldn't be able to draw that benefit. There would not be people to buy your product, people to work for you, ipods to buy, or physical security for whatever benefits you collected. So, it makes more sense that people who are drawing more benefit would pay more, no?

Imagine it like this. A stream runs through two people's land. One of them works in an office somewhere and doesn't really draw any benefit from the stream. The other one spends all of his time fishing from the stream for food and income. One day a beaver dams up the river and it dries out. Which one of them is going to go dismantle the dam to get the river back? The one who benefits more from the river- the fisherman. Same deal. It isn't that the river is like giving the fisherman some kind of special treatment that the other guy isn't getting. That isn't relevant. All that really matters is who benefits more from the river.

German guy said:

Well, I believe those who are do contribute their share. Even low qualified workers, be that cleaners or drivers. I think it's not doing their efforts justice when you call them useless. Besides, the value of a human being is not dependent on the money they make or the taxes they pay. Some people simply cost more than they bring in, be that ill, handicapped or retarded people. They deserve a life in dignity too.

The extremes of poverty and wealth we see today are obscene, IMO. Both extremes are not good for society on the long run.

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perhaps true but giving government the power to prevent extreme wealth is a far worse alternative

TurtleDude said:

and it also fails because if taxes are based on benefits you would have to argue that the top one percent benefits more than everyone from the bottom up to about the 92nd percentile because the Richest one percent pay more federal income taxes than those 92 percent of the population and certainly do not use nor benefit more from all the services paid for by the federal income tax

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Dude. You keep forgetting everything we discuss. Over and over we go in this loop. You need to pay more attention.

Remember, once again, that is only FEDERAL INCOME taxes you are talking about. How many freaking times have I had to clarify that for you?

So, if you want to see how the amount they pay correlates to the benefit they draw, you would need to look at what percentage of ALL taxes they pay since all taxes go to maintaining the society that provides those benefits. Got it? Am I going to have to freaking explain this to you again next time or are you going to remember?

teamosil said:

Any money you make is benefit you're gaining from interacting with society. That's what money is. Whether you consider that to be more the result of your efforts or somebody else's isn't really relevant to the question of how much benefit you're drawing. If society were allowed to fall apart, you wouldn't be able to draw that benefit. There would not be people to buy your product, people to work for you, ipods to buy, or physical security for whatever benefits you collected. So, it makes more sense that people who are drawing more benefit would pay more, no?

Imagine it like this. A stream runs through two people's land. One of them works in an office somewhere and doesn't really draw any benefit from the stream. The other one spends all of his time fishing from the stream for food and income. One day a beaver dams up the river and it dries out. Which one of them is going to go dismantle the dam to get the river back? The one who benefits more from the river- the fisherman. Same deal. It isn't that the river is like giving the fisherman some kind of special treatment that the other guy isn't getting. That isn't relevant. All that really matters is who benefits more from the river.

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Yep. We're all living in society and we have a responsibility for each other.

An ideology that claims "there is no such thing as society, there are only individuals" is very misleading and dangerous.

TurtleDude said:

perhaps true but giving government the power to prevent extreme wealth is a far worse alternative

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Agreed. But extreme, or at least extensive wealth would still exist, if the extremely wealthy were taxed more. We're not talking about a nationalization or anything here. Just about fair contribution. The one with broader shoulders should carry more, because he can.

teamosil said:

Dude. You keep forgetting everything we discuss. Over and over we go in this loop. You need to pay more attention.

Remember, once again, that is only FEDERAL INCOME taxes you are talking about. How many freaking times have I had to clarify that for you?

So, if you want to see how the amount they pay correlates to the benefit they draw, you would need to look at what percentage of ALL taxes they pay since all taxes go to maintaining the society that provides those benefits. Got it? Am I going to have to freaking explain this to you again next time or are you going to remember?

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federal income taxes are the ones that are progressive remember? sales taxes pretty much are self regulating and FICA should have never existed in the first place but as long as you get more the more you pay (sort of like an insurance policy) so what

German guy said:

Extreme wealth would still exist, if the extremely wealthy were taxed more. We're not talking about a nationalization or anything here. Just about fair contribution. The one with broader shoulders should carry more, because he can.

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More taxes have not proven to do anything but justify more spending and more government. the top one percent in our country make 22% of the income and pay almost 40% of the income taxes. that is far more than "fair"

the problem is the rich are carry too much of the burden and everyone else is carrying too little

TurtleDude said:

More taxes have not proven to do anything but justify more spending and more government. the top one percent in our country make 22% of the income and pay almost 40% of the income taxes. that is far more than "fair"

the problem is the rich are carry too much of the burden and everyone else is carrying too little

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When I look at the ghettos, the horrible health insurance situation and "working poor", I can't see that. And, as you probably know, most statistics show different numbers.

German guy said:

When I look at the ghettos, the horrible health insurance situation and "working poor", I can't see that. And, as you probably know, most statistics show different numbers.

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so high taxes have alleviated those problems?

TurtleDude said:

so high taxes have alleviated those problems?

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You don't have high taxes in America. Especially not the wealthier people. So we don't know if it would help. At any rate, it would help solving the budget problems. They are relevant for all members of society.

German guy said:

You don't have high taxes in America. Especially not the wealthier people. So we don't know if it would help. At any rate, it would help solving the budget problems. They are relevant for all members of society.

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but what we do have is the rich paying a far higher share of the income tax than their share of the income. Isn't ti true that in Europe the rich's share of the government taxes tends to be about the same as their share of the income.

and we had confiscatory marginal tax rates in the 40's and 50's though the actual effective rate wasn't much different than it was today

TurtleDude said:

so high taxes have alleviated those problems?

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They have in the past when we actually had higher tax rates. It was the period of the strongest middle class in our history.

How did cutting the capital gains tax rate to 15% for the last decade help us???

Catawba said:

They have in the past when we actually had higher tax rates. It was the period of the strongest middle class in our history.

How did cutting the capital gains tax rate to 15% for the last decade help us???

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You mean the era when all of our competition had been bombed flat?

tell us if you can establish that those confiscatory tax rates that you pine for really did anything good

German guy said:

You don't have high taxes in America. Especially not the wealthier people. So we don't know if it would help. At any rate, it would help solving the budget problems. They are relevant for all members of society.

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I highly doubt it would solve the budget problems. You seem to forget that in the 1970s the top marginal rate was 70%, and far from having tons of money for the Federal budget, they had a deficit of $80 Billion in 1974. Which when you account for inflation, would be a deficit of roughly $350 Billion today, just about in line with the deficit prior to the recession.

There wasn't tons of cash for your social programs. No money for universal health care. Sorry, just not there.

And what a lot of people here fail to figure out is, capital is not static. It's dynamic. It can move around. People routinely move money across the market to avoid taxes. In New York, they passed a large tax increase, and the following tax season, 30% of the millionaires dropped off the planet. Where'd they go? They moved their wealth. Got company perks instead of income. Put money in tax shelters. Some even left the state.

You can't stop people with wealth from avoiding taxes by leaving. And if they leave, then the entire society suffers. East and West Berlin. Jamaica. South Africa. This happens all the time.

German guy said:

When I look at the ghettos, the horrible health insurance situation and "working poor", I can't see that. And, as you probably know, most statistics show different numbers.

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We don't have horrible health insurance. That's a myth.

German guy said:

Well, I believe those who are do contribute their share. Even low qualified workers, be that cleaners or drivers. I think it's not doing their efforts justice when you call them useless. Besides, the value of a human being is not dependent on the money they make or the taxes they pay. Some people simply cost more than they bring in, be that ill, handicapped or retarded people. They deserve a life in dignity too.

The extremes of poverty and wealth we see today are obscene, IMO. Both extremes are not good for society on the long run.

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It's always amazing how much people try and assign 'deserve' to people. They do? Why do they? Explain the reason they deserve this?

First, I would rather have extremes, than all be impoverished. Further, I think it's rather a joke to claim there are extremes of poor in America. You need to visit the slums of India if you want to see extreme poverty. Or the refrigerator box people in Mexico.

Most of the poor in America, are poor by choice. Most of the poor in other countries, are poor because they have no other option. I think it was a visiting Russia who said 'Only in America do you find fat poor people', and I agree (with whoever said that). The poor in other countries are truly poor. They are looking for one cup of rice for dinner, while our poor are complaining their welfare check doesn't cover cable TV.

TurtleDude said:

federal income taxes are the ones that are progressive remember?

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That's right! Maybe you are retaining some of this! Yay for TurtleDude! Federal income taxes are progressive, state taxes are generally regressive. Good work TD.

teamosil said:

That's right! Maybe you are retaining some of this! Yay for TurtleDude! Federal income taxes are progressive, state taxes are generally regressive. Good work TD.

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FICA taxes are a hybrid, state death taxes are progressive as are state income taxes

Catawba said:

They have in the past when we actually had higher tax rates. It was the period of the strongest middle class in our history.

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Ok I'll bite. Based on what evidence would you claim this.

Catawba said:

Would that be the working class Democrats, or the working class GOP, that you consider to be parasites???

"More than half of Republicans say wealthier Americans should pay more in taxes to bring down the federal budget deficit."

Poll: Americans Back Taxing Rich - Bloomberg

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Like I care. Does half of any group saying something, mean it's a good idea? Let me guess, when everyone believed the Earth was flat, that made it the obvious truth of the day, correct? Stupid republican wanting higher taxes during an economic down turn, is just and absolutely idiotic, as a stupid democrap wanting higher taxes during an economic down turn. Party affiliation does not change the reality of the policy.

TurtleDude said:

You ignore the fact that an honors student is given NOTHING additional than the slacker. its his hard work and talent or a combination thereof that earns him better grades and he has no duty to pay more than those who are goof offs, retards, or slackers

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I would agree with this. My own experience has been that the slackers and goof offs, drain far more resources from the education system, than those which are honor students. This is typically, in my estimation, because the honor students simply put in more effort, and thus achieve better results. Alternatively, goof offs and slackers tend to receive more attention by the system, to try and coerce them into making the minimal grades required to pass.

Again, just my experience.

TurtleDude said:

FICA taxes are a hybrid, state death taxes are progressive as are state income taxes

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Some states have progressive income taxes, some don't. Those that are technically progressive tend to be very shallowly progressive. For example, they might have a 5% tax on incomes up to $30k/year and then 7% after that or something. Or they might just have a flat income tax rate.

The estate tax is indeed usually regressive in that it has an exemption.

But overall, as I've documented many times, state taxes are regressive. On average, a person in the bottom 20% for income pays 12.3% of that income in state taxes where somebody in the top 1% only pays 7.9% in state taxes.

teamosil said:

Some states have progressive income taxes, some don't. Those that are technically progressive tend to be very shallowly progressive. For example, they might have a 5% tax on incomes up to $30k/year and then 7% after that or something. Or they might just have a flat income tax rate.

The estate tax is indeed usually regressive in that it has an exemption.

But overall, as I've documented many times, state taxes are regressive. On average, a person in the bottom 20% for income pays 12.3% of that income in state taxes where somebody in the top 1% only pays 7.9% in state taxes.

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so lets see 20% pays 12.3% and one percent pays 7.9% of their income to state taxes but what are the actual dollar amounts?

that latter group is paying far more taxes than any similarly sized group in that bottom 20%

and does that take into account the death taxes? or are you saying that someone on the bottom 20% spends more of his income in state taxes than rich people? and again so what? the rich guy pays far more actual dollars and those state taxes are not supposed to be completely progressive are they

and if someone in the bottom 20% is getting handouts from either the state or federal government can you honestly count money so received used to pay state taxes are actually paid by them or rather US who fund those handouts

The capital class paying half the tax rate that the labour class pays, and then telling the labour class that they're "unpatriotic" if they want to change that is practically the definition of class warfare.

BooRadley said:

The capital class paying half the tax rate that the labour class pays, and then telling the labour class that they're "unpatriotic" if they want to change that is practically the definition of class warfare.

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more lies

the labour class pays under 12% federal income tax rates. indeed 97% of America pays a lower effective federal income tax rate than Romney. The only people who are paying higher rates are making at least 200K a year

The reality is that in 2009, the most recent year that records are available, 97 percent of Americans paid less than the 13.9 percent Romney did in 2010.
As demonstrated by Romney's 2010 return, the media are using Adjusted Gross Income to determine his tax rate. On line 37, the Romneys reported $21.6 million in AGI. This is the figure used Tuesday in press reports concerning this matter.
As you can see from the first table at the bottom of this article, people that had an AGI of $100,000 and under $200,000 in 2009 had an average tax rate of 11.9 percent. All those making under $100,000 had tax rates that were even less. The only people paying more than this were those that made over $200,000 paying at rates between 19.6 percent and 25.8 percent.


Read more: Beware False Claims: 'Romney's Tax Rate Is Below That of Most Wage-Earning Americans' | NewsBusters.org

TurtleDude said:

so lets see 20% pays 12.3% and one percent pays 7.9% of their income to state taxes but what are the actual dollar amounts?

that latter group is paying far more taxes than any similarly sized group in that bottom 20%

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How many times have I explained to you why the percentage matters, not the absolute amount? 100 times you figure?

TurtleDude said:

and does that take into account the death taxes?

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Yes, it takes the estate tax into account. All taxes. Very few states have estate taxes though.

TurtleDude said:

or are you saying that someone on the bottom 20% spends more of his income in state taxes than rich people?

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I'm not just saying that, I gave you the proof.

TurtleDude said:

those state taxes are not supposed to be completely progressive

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You keep saying that like it means something... Are not supposed to be progressive? Like are you saying that you believe there are stone tablets somewhere on a mountain top that says "states, thou shalt tax regressively!" or something?

TurtleDude said:

and if someone in the bottom 20% is getting handouts from either the state or federal government can you honestly count money so received used to pay state taxes are actually paid by them or rather US who fund those handouts

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The rich draw far more benefit from society. If a person is helped out of poverty, that benefits the rich more than it benefits that person in today's economy. The rich keep more than half of each person's productivity for themselves.

TurtleDude said:

The reality is that in 2009, the most recent year that records are available, 97 percent of Americans paid less than the 13.9 percent Romney did in 2010.

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Oops! You accidentally are just looking at federal income taxes excluding FICA again. Dang it, that must be really frustrating and embarrassing to you that you keep making that same mistake over and over and over. You should put it on a post it note and stick it to your monitor maybe- "remember to consider all types of taxes".

As pointed out to you dozens of times, virtually everybody pays a higher percentage of their income to taxes overall than Romney does- http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2011.pdf