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Originally Posted by InformedConsent
EG and you have done nothing of the sort. And the top 1% does not own 40% of the nation's wealth.
And they pay a much higher tax rate than the bottom 150 million. Higher than they should if you really want everyone to pay their fair share.  |
I think I've shown this to you literally in a series of run-down points on this. Despite paying
slightly more on their income tax (a progressive tax), they pay
significantly less on all other taxes. As a result, according to what they earn and are worth, proportionally, the top 1% and top 20% pay less than
everyone else. Those between 20% and 80% pay
31% of all federal taxes, and are only worth 17%.
So, feel free to parrot whatever you want, you're not going to get anywhere with a singular data point on a graph-mined--graph--from a source which refutes the argument you are trying to make.
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Originally Posted by Secchamps98
Why does it matter that the rich are getting richer?
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The wealth has to come from somewhere. An economy runs on demand, not supply, and as you extract the wealth from your market base (the 80-90% of the people), you begin to slow the economy. Supply-side economics over the past forty years has made the rich-richer, and the poor-poorer, because it's shifted the tax burden from the wealthy unto the middle class and poor. They pay more taxes than the wealthy do in proportion to their wealth, and what that means is less money for them. When the vast majority of your people don't have money to spend, you don't have an economy.
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I mean, why is it someone elses business.
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Nobody really has a problem with people making money, or even getting rich. They have a problem with rich people not paying their taxes.
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Why not worry about your own life and not someone else. If someone gets rich, good for them. Why must the Govt take from someone and give to someone else. We have equal opportunity here, not equal outcomes. If people want equal outcomes try living somewhere in Europe.
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Why would you think people have equal outcomes in Europe? And how would you define equal opportunity?
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Sorry that it is "harder" to pay taxes and pay for items.
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Demand drives your economy. Without being able to pay for goods, you don't have an economy.
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But so what, they don't have to be poor.
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Are you insinuating people want to be poor?
Getting ahead in many instances is making the right choices, working hard and not giving up.[/quote]
Getting ahead in most instances is a matter of luck, with skill, intelligence, and work sharing a small relevance.
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Tell me why those who choose to make bad choices deserve to live off the spoils of the high earners.
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Why do you assume they've made bad choices?
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Certainly if there are special medical needs or children, I understad..but there are plenty of able bodied peple who simlpy want to cry, "its not fair", give me what they have. I still stand by the premise, that services (Gvt benefits) have a cost. If people wnat those said services then they need to pay for the dollar value.
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From the butchering of the English language going on here, I'm guessing you didn't do too well in school.
Those government services
do have a cost, you're right. They should be paid for,
you're right, but only a small margin of people in this country hold the tremendous wealth of it--and it isn't the bottom 80%. If you make the most money, you get taxed the most money, because no matter what you want to think, we all get to pay for the same thing at the same cost, and people with no money lose money faster than those with tons of it. That's a simple scaler issue.
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The dollar value of service should be no different for a high earner or a low earner. I don't pay for a differnt price for a BigMac simply becasue I make more or less money, why should a gov service be any different?
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This is why taxes go up the more you make, because if I paid the same taxes as someone who was wealthy, I'd be out of money faster than they were. I cut 10% off my income that's a solid $2,000. A rich person does it, it's a solid $200,000. But the difference is that now I have just $18,000 to pay rent, buy a car, feed myself, get to work, pay my bills, and hope I have enough left over for my health premiums.
Where as, those same items cost the same for the guy that now has $800,000 to spend. He might live in a fancier house, and buy a slightly nicer car, but gas costs the same. So does food. And those other bills, assuming he has any debt at all, because the poor hold onto the vast majority of the debt in the country.
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Originally Posted by Wapasha
We need more tax payers, not more tax increases on the few people who still have a job.
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Nobody wants to tax the poor and middle class. They are already over taxed. It's all about shifting the burden from them, to the wealthy, as it should be.
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If I am unemployed, I'm hoping that some person making over $250,000 has enough money to hire me. If I'm running my own business, whether its installing windows in people's homes, fixing their cars or manufacturing widgets, I'm hoping government won't raise my taxes or create some new regulation that will put me out of business or raise my operating costs.
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This is supply-side economics, and it doesn't work. You can cut taxes down to
zero for the business-owner. Without any money to spend, the people who would buy his windows, the 80% of the population? That company wouldn't hire you anyway, because there isn't any demand.
You want a job making windows? You have to cut taxes on people who actually
drive the economy. Taxes are levied on profits, not labor.
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Originally Posted by Wapasha
This is not the 1800s where a business owner had a few stores, and all their profits came from customers in the local area. We live in a world economy now, profits come from a customer base that spans the entire planet.
I'm not an economist, but it seems to me that when you run a hardware store only have 5,000 customers, that you will make less income then if you own a chain of hardware stores all over the world, and have 500 million customers.
You seem to want a cap on customer base, with hundreds of thousands of mom and pop stores dotting the planet, like we had 50 to 100 years ago.
Let's take a box boy that makes $8/hour, working at Walmart, as an example. The box boy only services the patrons to that one store, not the entire world, so his paycheck reflects about what a box boy made 50 to 100 years ago, because they are both performing basically the same service.
Now let's look at the NW regional manager who is in charge of all Walmart stores in the Midwestern US, he is servicing tens of millions of customers, so his compensation is much higher then the guy 50 to 100 years ago who only ran one or two local stores.
We have thousands of people who are employed to service tens of millions of customers, and if their company is global, with world-wide internet sales, they may service a base of one billion customers.
Where is the income cap supposed to be, in your view? When companies are global, their employee base is also global. It's not cheap to hire the best of the best in a world with millions upon millions of the best people in management, sales, advertising, engineering, and distribution. Many of these people live in the US, hence the large incomes. Should there be a cap on income? What happens if another business owner decides to pay above your arbitrary salary or compensation cap?
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You're not even in the same galaxy. Nobody here has stated to cap their direct income. You are attacking a straw-man. It isn't a matter of where the wealth is coming from either, but if the wealthy are paying taxes on it--and they aren't.
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Originally Posted by InformedConsent
Thank you!!!  |
Another parrot?
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Originally Posted by Secchamps98
So do you always answer a question with a question? Again, wealth will continue to grow over time, those who want to work hard, take risks, have good ideas wll be successfull..those risk averse will probably be less successful. I also asked, why does it matter that people have alot of wealth?
To answer your question, there have been plenty of times for folks to have done well. I think it is rather naive to believe that 100% of the nation will ever have a great time similtaneously. One way of looking at the collective, whiich is quite decieing way to look at things...in the US poverty has decreased since 1959....so over the last 50 yrs more folks are not poor.
Granted that times are lean now, but I suspect as the job picks up the current trend will change...
SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Income Alternative Poverty Estimates in the United States: 2003, Report P60, n. 227, Tables B-1 and B-3, pp. 18, 20.
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I do believe taxes were pretty damn high in the fifties. Let me check.
Yep.
Medicare started in 65.
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Looking at it another way:
