Anyone Attend an Atlanta "Tea Party"? (Boston: school, universities)

[lilmusket]

Originally Posted by vsmoove

Until you understand that the disparity in taxes paid is as a result of the disparity of wealth in this country, we are really not going to see eye to eye so no need to continue.

so in other words its the role of government to "spread the wealth"? That sounds vaguely familiar.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by Mishap

Neil,

That chart you put there skews things just a bit. It ignores what % of total income each category makes. Bill Gates paid more in income tax this year than a large multiple of my income. Of course his earnings and investment returns are an even larger % of my income. Given he earns so much more than me, his contribution to income tax appears far greater but if you removed deductions and used his gross income his % to start his tax basis, he may pay a lower rate than me (given the vast majority of his income is likely in MSFT dividends taxed at 15%). Because I have almost no deductions right now, my effective tax rate is roughly 25-27% including federal/state/fica after taking the std deduction.

A straight % income tax becomes very regressive b/c the diminishing marginal utility on money. $100,000 increase in Bill Gates' income would affect his lifestyle less than a $100,000 increase in yours or my income. Even on a straight % basis, a 10% bump in Bill Gates salary would be dramatically less effective in changing his desire to work than it would in ours despite a 10% increase in his income would be many times more than most of us earn in a lifetime. You may not work very hard for at the offer of an additional $100/mon in income but the person earning $10/hr likely would since they

I'm not saying we should base income purely on a marginal utility basis...Bill would get taxed at 99.999% for each extra dollar he earns. Instead what we have is an amalgamated mess but it hasn't ripped out the ingenuity of the American businessman since that top 1% continues to grow in its portion of the total income pie at the expense of the middle class. That bottom % of people have never paid much in income tax b/c they make something like 6% of the income. You also forget that most people on SS only take in that much in income which is a portion of that tax which is something like 50M people at this point. Also, they still pay payroll taxes which are capped at the first 100k of income...meaning Bill's payroll tax bill is infinitely small % of his income vs. the 7.65% for those of us earning 100k or less.

If nothing else I would actually argue that the growing income disparity is leading to class warfare. The top 1% is making the largest chunk of the total income pie in history(far worse than the days of Rockefeller, JP Morgan, Vanderbilt et al). Every time this disparity gets too large you wind up w/ rebellion of some kind. In the end there is always an us vs. them aspect regardless on which side of the chart you fall on. Just like you abhor those useless people under you on the tax scale for not paying your share...those above you (unless you're Warren Buffet in disguise) likely abhor you getting discounts for housing, tuition, student loans, or any other deductions you may get. Another thing you have to realize is as your income goes up so does your ability to hire people to manage your money effectively to minimize your tax bill. The guy making 300k AGI more than likely makes significantly more but can afford to pay someone to structure their income to be tax friendly.

Your whole argument seems to be based on the fact that it's the government's job through income taxation to "level" the playing field and tax Bill Gates more because he's successful. That's the entire problem with the system we have and the folks who support it. Why is it acceptable to tax people more both in real dollars and percentage simply because they're successful and made the choices and decisions necessary to earn that success?

A flat tax is not "regressive" in the true sense of the word. It's fair...it takes the same percentage from you and me, regardless of our earning power, but if I earn more, I pay more. That's American....that's what our country was founded on, and for the last 100 years since we've had income taxation we've let the fairness drift into some kind of Robin Hood play by the left to redistribute income from those who have to those who don't have.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by vsmoove

Until you understand that the disparity in taxes paid is as a result of the disparity of wealth in this country, we are really not going to see eye to eye so no need to continue.

So-called "disparity of wealth" is NOT inherently bad as you would have us believe...that's the point. You see success as something that needs to be punished and wealth as something bad that needs to be curbed through confiscatory government taxation. I don't. There's the difference.

[lilmusket]

The whole point of the Soviet Union was to make sure everyone had the same thing regardless of their effort... gee, that worked out rather well didn't it? Seems to be doing great in North Korea and Cuba too. And the "spread the wealth" policies in Zimbabwe is just doing wonders for that economy.

[back2dc]

Originally Posted by lilmusket

The whole point of the Soviet Union was to make sure everyone had the same thing regardless of their effort... gee, that worked out rather well didn't it? Seems to be doing great in North Korea and Cuba too. And the "spread the wealth" policies in Zimbabwe is just doing wonders for that economy.

Stop throwing out Fox News and other right-wing scare tactic terminology which make absolutely no sense.

No one is advocating communism. There's a difference between communism and socialism, not withstanding the fact that the Soviet Union and North Korea don't have free elections.

Western European countries are still democracies where the people choose to elect leaders and programs that support a hybrid of capitalism and socialism. The people there are smarter when it comes to nationwide testing, healthier when it comes to longevity and obesity rates and have lower crime rates than we do in America. They must be doing something right that we're not getting over here.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by lilmusket

The whole point of the Soviet Union was to make sure everyone had the same thing regardless of their effort... gee, that worked out rather well didn't it? Seems to be doing great in North Korea and Cuba too. And the "spread the wealth" policies in Zimbabwe is just doing wonders for that economy.

Don't bother with straw men. Nobody here is expressing a desire to emulate any of the countries you mention. If you disapprove of redistributive taxation policies, let's hear your criticisms of Canada, the UK, France, Germany, etc.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

let's hear your criticisms of Canada, the UK, France, Germany, etc.

Oh boy RRD...where to start? Unemployment over the last 40 years?

High rates of income and value added taxation?

Lack of private sector economic growth and gov't spending at more than 50% of GDP?

Surrender of national sovereignty and single Euro currency for most of Europe?

With the possible exception of the UK, the lack of defense spending and reliance on the US for defense and doing the heavy lifting in the world?

Were you going to hold these countries up as examples we should emulate? Why didn't you mention the more successful and low tax countries like Ireland for example?

[back2dc]

Originally Posted by neil0311

So-called "disparity of wealth" is NOT inherently bad as you would have us believe...that's the point. You see success as something that needs to be punished and wealth as something bad that needs to be curbed through confiscatory government taxation. I don't. There's the difference.

That is the difference. But try looking at it from the reverse angle. Success is never something to be punished. I do not advocate that and most "liberals" would agree. Flip the equation around and look at it this way: success is something to be shared and enjoyed. Whatever happened to helping your fellow countrymen and citizens? I don't find personal enjoyment in hording my money and goods all to myself -- we are an intelligent, advanced and complex society not superstitious cave dwellers sharpening arrows and chasing game across the prairies.

When an individual has done well for him or herself there should be a sense of: "hey, I'm doing alright in life, my tax rate may be higher, but there is still plenty of food in the fridge, I have a nice car, a nice house, a great job and I'll still be pulling in mad cash for the rest of my life. Wouldn't it be nice to see my personal success fund local infrastructure repairs, school refurbishment, a reduction in pollution levels, top of the line police and fire protection services, and state of the art hospitals?"

Many conservatives come across as very selfish, stingy and out of touch with their community even though it has become dreadfully apparent that private enterprise cannot solve this nation's ills. Look around us: for decades following WW2, America was considered to be cutting-edge, a generous land of opportunity with exceptional services. We are no longer that country because our recent administrations (until Obama's election), no longer prioritized these attributes that made us a first-rate nation.

I would like to see that change.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by back2dc

success is something to be shared and enjoyed. Whatever happened to helping your fellow countrymen and citizens? I don't find personal enjoyment in hording my money and goods all to myself.

I agree, and that's why I give to charity. There are plenty of times when I see a news item on TV or read something in the paper, and I get on the web and make a donation. The difference is that I choose how to spend my money and I choose to give because that's my perogative. It should not be the perogative of the government to force me to "give" my money to anyone.

This is the real world. You will have some greedy people and some generous people, but the government doesn't get to decide who gives and who gets. To use the example of Bill Gates...he has given away billions of dollars of his personal fortune to charity. He made a choice to be generous and to give. That was his personal decision what to do with his money, not a government mandate. He is not "hoarding" anything, and in fact, he has given more than you and I and millions of "average" people could give in 10 lifetimes. This class warfare stereotyping must stop.

If we're in the business of governments telling wealthy people what to do with their money, why can't we tell poor people not to have children they can't support? When you knowingly have children you can't support, you put a burden on your fellow citizens who have to support you kids growing up, and there is a better than average chance that those children will be supported by taxpayers in later life as inmates in a state prison. We could help our fellow countrymen by prohibiting people from having kids until they provide proof of adequate support. I'm only saying that to prove a point, but hey, why do we only want to hold the wealthy to this higher standard? They've already done the right thing....time to hold the rest of the country to the same standard.

[vsmoove]

Originally Posted by lilmusket

The whole point of the Soviet Union was to make sure everyone had the same thing regardless of their effort... gee, that worked out rather well didn't it? Seems to be doing great in North Korea and Cuba too. And the "spread the wealth" policies in Zimbabwe is just doing wonders for that economy.

Your understanding of economics is not worthy of debating if you compare our progressive taxation system to these nations.