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Budget talks: This is getting nasty

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by printdust, Jul 13, 2011.

Page 201 of 214
  1. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    Ragu, I may be a little off because I'm going on memory (been getting busy with football getting ready to start) but if memory serves the top 10 percent pays something like 45 percent of federal income tax, right? That sounds horrible, until you see studies that the top 10 percent control 80 percent of the wealth.

    Plus it's very disingenuous to not include total tax burden. Since we subject to a variety of taxes, the statistics only give a clear picture when all taxes are combined. In that regard, we certainly need a simplification of our tax code. We have a progressive income tax, but other taxes that are largely regressive.

    I think I read where the top one percent of wage earners made 20 percent of the money but between state and federal taxes, paid 21 percent of the tax while the middle 20 percent bracket made something like 14 percent of the income and paid 13 percent of the tax.

    The unfairness really isn't there.
     
    BrianGriffin, Aug 11, 2011
    #2401
  2. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    The next presidential election will be a guy accused of being a foreigner against a guy who wants to be a foreigner...
     
    BrianGriffin, Aug 11, 2011
    #2402
  3. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    It accurately portrayed her opinion.
     
    BrianGriffin, Aug 11, 2011
    #2403
  4. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Sure, I aspire to monetary success. And I don't begrudge anyone who makes an honest living that doesn't involve screwing over either the customers or their employees. You offer a service, and if I remember right, you pay your workers something like $20 an hour and they're learning a business that'll help their own career prospects. You're doing things the right way.

    I can honestly say though, that if I was making $200K a year, I'd be happier than a pig in shit. And I wouldn't be bitching over paying an extra $8K a year in federal taxes. I'd be quite happy living on $160K, not counting any other taxes, instead of $168K if the country was on a sound footing.
     
    Baron Scicluna, Aug 11, 2011
    #2404
  5. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    Save us, job creators!
     
    Azrael, Aug 11, 2011
    #2405
  6. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Well, to start, your style of response here is very lame. You attribute things to me I never said, and then argue your straw men. For example, I never once said, or suggested, that if more people had to bear some cost of our government by actually paying income tax, it would "somehow make them sympathetic to the richest 5% of Americans in our country." By ignoring what I said, and attributing your own words to me, you are really arguing with yourself. I never said anything like that. What I said, and have now repeated several times, is below in #3. I could give too shits what the country thinks about the richest 5 percent of Americans. Those people, in so much as they are not doing anything that violates my individual rights, are not doing anything that should be demonized, and frankly, their fortunes are THEIR businesses, not mine or yours. They don't deserve scorn, and they don't deserve sympathy just by virtue of the fact that they have a lot of money.

    To your numbers:
    1) Half of Americans paid ZERO income tax last year. Given what I see on this board about journalism salaries, my best guess is that includes people on this board. People seem to want to pipe in about their FICA tax, when that is brought up. This year, social security will pay out more than it takes in. So, sure, you pay FICA. But EVERYONE who earns anything pays that tax. I am an employer, and I pay twice as much FICA as most people on here. That is not supporting anything, but a failed social security system, though. I am talking about the Federal Income tax, which supposedly supports the $3 to $4 trillion budget that was passed this year. We not only didn't raise enough in receipts, the very people everyone seems to expect to "pay more" or "pay their fair share" were the ones who paid 3/4 of those receipts. Can I be any more clear?

    2) Politicians (and people on this board) do engage in class warfare. Within the last few weeks, I have watched the president get on national TV at least a half a dozen times and demonize "corporate jet owners," "millionaires and billionaires," (i.e. -- anyone earning $250K or more), who need to "pay their fair share." (a term used over and over again on this bulletin board). Fair share? How subjective and arbitrary. Fair share invariably means, "someone with more than me should be paying more than they already do." Of course, we already have the most progressive tax system in the world, which is demonstrated by the spreadsheet linked to below.

    Politically, what that does is takes the 98 percent of people watching the president, and make them believe the answer to the trillions of dollars of debt we have amassed, and continue to amass, is to just tax "those guys." You know, the amorphous "rich," who "can afford to pay more." Forget that "those guys" ARE the ones contributing the vast majority of our tax receipts already. It can't be repeated enough. We have the most progressive tax system in the world according to the OECD. This is not "jimmying" any numbers, as someone tried to put it. It included all levels of taxation. You can download the OECD spreadsheet from 2008 here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/422013187855. The short of it is that in the United States, the wealthiest decile pays 45.1 percent of our taxes. That is effective tax receipts, not marginal tax rates. Compare that with anywhere else. Switzerland, it's 20.9 percent. The UK, 38.6 percent. Belgium, 25.4 percent. Japan, 28.5 percent. Germany, 31.2 percent. Canada, 35.8 percent. And so on, and so on. If you really want to insist on saying we "soak the rich" in this country, perhaps you have a point with YOUR characterization.

    3) Ludicrous notion to you, or not, I rely on what economics has taught us for more than a century, particularly with effect to the lighthouse problem. When people don't pay for something, they are all too happy to avail themselves of it, and all too happy to offer prescriptions of "the other guy" paying for it. We have close to a $4 trillion government. Most people don't pay for it. It has been paid for by debt, and a tax base that is not nearly broad enough to support that kind of spending. I suggested that everyone should have to pay SOME tax. If they felt some of the sting of $4 trillion being given to our legislators, who then hand it out in a convoluted system of special-interest pay offs, my hope is that they'd start to understand what is going on, and sentiment toward that "style" of government would wane. If you find that notion ludicrous, fine by me. But once again, I never said what you attributed to me, about sympthathy for the rich, or whatever other Alma statements you want to type than attribute to me. You are a master at creating straw men, rather than reading and responding to what I actually said.
     
    The Big Ragu, Aug 11, 2011
    #2406
  7. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    You can keep saying this over and over and over again, and until you present that with some sort of representation of how much of the wealth each of these segments of the population controls and how much of the actual income it takes in, it will continue to be meaningless. It's like arguing that a guy with 50 solo home runs produced more than a guy with 25 three-run home runs.

    "Half of Americans paid ZERO income tax" doesn't mean anything either, given that less than 100% of the American population works. Or do you mean half the working population? Because somehow I doubt that you do.

    And for the 973rd time, everyone DOES pay SOME tax. And maybe SS wouldn't be in credit if those making more than $100K actually had to pay FICA on that segment of their income.

    I must have missed that day in history where they taught us that the Founding Fathers' overriding principle in drafting the Constitution was "Fuck you, I got mine."
     
    deskslave, Aug 11, 2011
    #2407
  8. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    In absolute dollar terms.

    As a percentage of their income, it's still much less than what I pay.
     
    Azrael, Aug 11, 2011
    #2408
  9. printdust

    printdust New Member

    LMAO. That will go far.
     
    printdust, Aug 11, 2011
    #2409
  10. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    The New York Post:

    [​IMG]

    http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/today-ny-post-cover-more-over-top-average-183036278.html
     
    YankeeFan, Aug 11, 2011
    #2410
  11. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    The tax rates of European countries. Granted it's Wikipedia, but I figure it should be pretty accurate:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_of_Europe

    There's an awful lot of countries, including the UK, France and Germany, where the maximum individual tax rate is higher than the U.S. And a lot of their citizens receive government health care, which, I seem to recall, an awful lot of Republicans were fighting tooth and nail against here.

    CEO pay is going up around the world, but it's a heckuva lot larger in the US. In India, the CEO makes 68 times the average worker. In Europe, 115 times. In the U.S. it's 250 times:

    http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-02-07/news/28426514_1_top-executives-total-compensation-top-companies

    Ragu, you complain about how the rich are being demonized in this country. They wouldn't be if they were creating jobs, and paying their workers well. If incomes grow for everyone to the point where they can feel comfortable about their present and future, they're not going to demonize the rich.

    But if they're told that they have to work more and have less in their pockets because the CEO wants to double his pay package even though profits are down, the stock price has crashed from when he first took over, and there's little plans for the future besides throwing shit up against the wall, yeah, workers are going to be pissed.
     
    Baron Scicluna, Aug 11, 2011
    #2411
  12. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    Terrible NY Post mash-up of British and Australian tabloid hedline sensibility with anachronistic hillbillly colloquialism. "Drawers?" Really?

    Hed works perfectly with "knickers" instead - which I would bet money was the first choice - but the lone American on the desk protested that no one would get it.

    "Drawers?"

    Welcome to Bugtussle.
     
    Azrael, Aug 11, 2011
    #2412
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