The divide in this country is growing, and is alarming

#26
#26
volinbham said:
kinda like John Kerry keeping his yacht in another state to avoid property taxes - that racist bastage
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those people who buy pottery and tranny porn off of amazon and don't pay sales tax should be ashamed of themselves.
 
#27
#27
droski said:
please explain specifically how we are taking money from the poor to give it to the rich when we have a progressive tax system. thanks much.
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I'm curious as to why there is a growing gap in wealth and the Republicans are holding up the debt ceiling increase by demanding the continuance of tax cuts that are doing nothing but making the already incredibly wealthy even wealthier and the economy is still in the crapper. If we plan on reducing the deficit the sacrifice is going to have to start with the top tax bracket.
 
#29
#29
PoochPunt3rdDown said:
I'm curious as to why there is a growing gap in wealth and the Republicans are holding up the debt ceiling increase by demanding the continuance of tax cuts that are doing nothing but making the already incredibly wealthy even wealthier and the economy is still in the crapper. If we plan on reducing the deficit the sacrifice is going to have to start with the top tax bracket.
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and pray tell why do you think there is a growing gap in wealth? it couldn't be because american middle class labor is ridiculously uncompetitive internationally? nah, must because we cut taxes for every tax bracket. makes sense to me. as for your tax cuts doing nothign what did obama's own economic advisors tell him to not take off the bush tax cuts? racism?
 
#30
#30
PoochPunt3rdDown said:
I'm curious as to why there is a growing gap in wealth and the Republicans are holding up the debt ceiling increase by demanding the continuance of tax cuts that are doing nothing but making the already incredibly wealthy even wealthier and the economy is still in the crapper. If we plan on reducing the deficit the sacrifice is going to have to start with the top tax bracket.
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1) Against tax increases in general

2) Feel the tax the rich approach does nothing to install fiscal discipline in the Fed govt.

3) Don't believe that the way to improve the bottom end of the spectrum is by making the rich less rich

4) Don't believe govt spending is the pathway to solving the problems of the poor


Personally, I like the idea of tax reform that will lower overall rates and remove the loopholes. That will have the same effect I guess (rich will pay a bit more) but it reduces the system gaming
 
#32
#32
There is nothing wrong with accumulating wealth. Our society encourages it as part of our economic model. It drives industry and creates jobs.

But most people are not capable of, nor interested in, taking a step back and seeing the big picture. What they care about is their own stuff, and right now. The building of roads, schools, and medical care for the guy down the street?

Someone else's problem.
 
#33
#33
droski said:
please explain specifically how we are taking money from the poor to give it to the rich when we have a progressive tax system. thanks much.
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Please explain specifically how you addressed Pooch's statement at all. Thanks much.
 
#34
#34
lawgator1 said:
Everyone pays taxes. Everyone.

Now, they might just be sales taxes, or some other form of point of sale revenue generator. But don't fall for this oversimplistic line that there's a whole class of people who pay absolutely nothing in taxes.

How do you explain the fact that the top hedge fund managers made $25 billion and paid a lower rate in taxes than did their secretaries?
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I thought u meant federal taxes
 
#36
#36
lawgator1 said:
Consider:

1) The median wealth of white households is now 20 times (that's right, TWENTY) the median wealth of black households. And its 18 times that of Hispanic households. These represent the largest gap between types since the government began keeping track of the numbers 25 years ago.
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That war on poverty sure is working wonders. Blacks have been basically economically stagnant since the late 60s. Who has been pushing these counter-productive poverty programs since the late 60s?

One man = One Vote vs Voting w/ Your Dollars:

When inner city blacks and Hispanics vote with their dollars they win. If you've ever been to the projects you'll see a surprising number of nice cars and people dressed in fancy clothes. These are things that they vote for with their dollars. What about the things they vote for with their ballots? Police protection? Schools? It's all ****. They don't get the same protection whites get. They don't get the same education that whites get.

Voting with dollars is much more egalitarian than one man = one vote, even when some parties have far less $. Do not turn to government to level the playing field.
 
#39
#39
volinbham said:
1) Against tax increases in general

2) Feel the tax the rich approach does nothing to install fiscal discipline in the Fed govt.

3) Don't believe that the way to improve the bottom end of the spectrum is by making the rich less rich

4) Don't believe govt spending is the pathway to solving the problems of the poor


Personally, I like the idea of tax reform that will lower overall rates and remove the loopholes. That will have the same effect I guess (rich will pay a bit more) but it reduces the system gaming
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I agree with most of your points, however, if we are going to tackle the deficit, everything has to be tabled and the Bush tax cuts seem to be doing nothing productive for the economy, so they need to be smashed. I know it's harsh to ask the wealthiest 1% to sacrifice, but something has to give.

Any financial wizards have an approximation as to the amount we are giving to the top 1% in yearly tax breaks under the current administration?
 
#40
#40
PoochPunt3rdDown said:
I agree with most of your points, however, if we are going to tackle the deficit, everything has to be tabled and the Bush tax cuts seem to be doing nothing productive for the economy, so they need to be smashed. I know it's harsh to ask the wealthiest 1% to sacrifice, but something has to give.

Any financial wizards have any approximation as to the amount we are giving to the top 1% in yearly tax breaks under the current administration?
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I believe the marginal rate difference was 4 percentage points or so (35 vs 39) or something like that.

Maybe a couple hundred billion over 10 years?
 
#41
#41
PoochPunt3rdDown said:
I agree with most of your points, however, if we are going to tackle the deficit, everything has to be tabled and the Bush tax cuts seem to be doing nothing productive for the economy, so they need to be smashed. I know it's harsh to ask the wealthiest 1% to sacrifice, but something has to give.

Any financial wizards have an approximation as to the amount we are giving to the top 1% in yearly tax breaks under the current administration?
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again, those tax cuts affect everyone currently paying taxes. You really think taking more money out of the hands of the citizens will improve the economy?
 
#42
#42
PoochPunt3rdDown said:
I agree with most of your points, however, if we are going to tackle the deficit, everything has to be tabled and the Bush tax cuts seem to be doing nothing productive for the economy, so they need to be smashed. I know it's harsh to ask the wealthiest 1% to sacrifice, but something has to give.

Any financial wizards have any approximation as to the amount we are giving to the top 1% in yearly tax breaks under the current administration?
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your evidence the tax cuts do nothing productive for the economy?

define "tax breaks?"
 
#44
#44
droski said:
obama's own ecomomic advisor:

http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~cromer/RomerDraft307.pdf
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The resulting estimates indicate that tax increases are highly contractionary. The effects are strongly significant, highly robust, and much larger than those obtained using broader measures of tax changes. The large effect stems in considerable part from a powerful negative effect of tax increases on investment. We also find that legislated tax increases designed to reduce a persistent budget deficit appear to have much smaller output costs than other tax increases.
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So even tax increases aimed at deficit reduction have a negative impact on economic activity
 
#46
#46
PoochPunt3rdDown said:
How exactly are we going to lower the deficit without raising revenues?
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last time i checked we both take in revenues and spend money. you can reduce the latter. job growth is the best way to raise tax revenues. this has been proven time and time again.
 
#48
#48
PoochPunt3rdDown said:
How exactly are we going to lower the deficit without raising revenues?
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Revenues or tax rates?

If economic growth picks up then revenues also grow even without a change in tax rates.

The work from Roemer that Droski posted argues that increasing tax rates actually depresses economic activity so while the tax rates are higher, revenue may not be higher and may actually shrink depending on the strength of each effect.

The argument for tax reform is that lower overall rates will spur economic activity and the reduction of loopholes will keep the code revenue neutral.
 
#49
#49
The Bush tax cuts were sold on the notion that they would create jobs.

They haven't.

Heard on Bloomberg this morning that a lot of people, including Bill Clinton, is proposing a repatriation of massive U.S. corporate profits being held overseas to avoid taxation. Apparently over a trillion dollars in corporate profit is being kept out of the country to avoid paying taxes.

The plan is to give a one year tax holiday on such monies, to encourage return of it to the U.S. and to possibly condition some portion on reinvestment that can demonstrably be linked to job creation.

This sounds like a good idea, but it should tell you something that U.S. corporations could even have done this in the first place. Through loopholes and dodges -- which by the way they created through lobbying -- massive amounts of money are being held just out of the reach of the IRS.

That GE paid no taxes at all, and that folks making billions manage to manipulate things to pay lower rates than their secretaries, tells me all I need to know about how tilted the system has become.
 
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