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Does a person who pays twice as much tax as another receive twice as much benefit?
This! I pay taxes into programs that for some reason, neither me, nor any of my family and friends seem to be eligible to take advantage of. Case in point. We have programs where shuttle buses are used to pick up children with disabilities right from the house and take them to school, or to pick up the elderly and take them to major shopping centers and other depots while the rest of us tax paying citizens have to either walk in the rain to the bus stops, or spend money buying a car to get to our destinations. Or how about the free cell phone services. Last I checked, cell phones are like a car, a privilege and a form of luxury.
Some people are just plain greedy and too lazy to understand the fundamentals upon which are Country was founded. Your cousin should ask the wealthy whiners if they have ever read Thomas Paine. Bet they haven't even heard of Thomas Paine.
Our country was founded without an income tax. If we want to go back to that principle, I'm all for it.
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Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler
Just for example, take the case of a hard working entrepreneur who manages to pull off his very own rags to riches story. Good for him! Does he deserve all that extra money he earns? Sure he does! Should he pay higher taxes on his high income? You bet!
Why should he pay a higher percentage than someone who doesn't make as much as he does? He's already paying more in terms of dollars.
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Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler
No man is an island. Our hypothetical entrepreneur benefits from one of the finest educational systems in the world. He learned his skills at publicly funded schools and colleges. If a working class person with big dreams had to pay private tuition to learn vital skills, it's much less likely that she'll pull that off. Same goes for the highly trained workforce that she needs to hire to run her electronic wizardry factory. Skilled workers trained in public schools and vo-tech programs are a wonderful resource for the companies who need employees with know-how. What about transporting those wizardry widgets from factory to market? Our entrepreneur benefits from the US tax payer funded Interstate system which extends to almost every town over a certain size in this country. If the widget factory had to pay to build its own private road system, its share holders would go through the roof. You can give many more examples, I'm sure.
First, our education system isn't one of the finest. It isn't even in the top 10. Second, everyone benefits from all of those items you listed, so why should the entrepreneur pay more than someone who works a simple j.o.b.?
The wealthiest man I ever personally knew had a 6th-grade education. Yet, he could buy anything he wanted with cold hard cash any time that he wanted to. His education had little to do with his wealth. He got wealthy because he found a way to get paid multiple times for a single piece of property and because he didn't waste his money on frivolous crap. After the first piece of property made him a bit of money, he repeated the process of buying acreage, selling the timber to a logging company, selling the scrap to a pallet mill and to firewood sellers, charging dump truck companies to dump fill dirt on the property, then smoothing the property out, splitting it up, and selling it in parcels at a profit. Other than basic math and reading skills which he could have been taught at home, how did the public education system benefit him in any way on his journey to wealth?
The question isn't whether or not one should pay taxes at all - at this point, that's a moot argument - but whether someone who earns more money than the average American should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. There isn't a single logical argument that supports a higher tax on high wage earners.
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Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler
The wealthy benefit from living in our democracy with all its benefits funded via our taxes. Why shouldn't those who have benefited the most pay a little more in taxes? That's only fair play.
The wealthy don't benefit more from the programs funded by our taxes. If anything, they benefit less because they aren't taking advantage of government programs to offset their lack of income. What the wealthy benefit from is the willpower, perseverance, and ability that is involved in creating a greater source of income that the average joe who complains about rich people is unwilling to put forth.
I see a lot of preaching from high earners about the unfair burden....and they are right. Sort of. We might take a look at the fact that many professions and executives can charge inflated prices or give themselves a huge pay raise after laying off enough of the masses.
When I look at the increases in medical treatment expenses and executive salaries, I don't think some should be taxed more. I think some should be executed.
We also have a lot of absolute ding bats making six figure incomes. They may pay plenty of taxes but are still more of a burden than an asset.
We also have a lot of wealth created from siphoning from the governments pockets. Bush and Cheney managed to finely hone that concept to an unprecedented degree. Cheney now co-owns Genel Energy with Lord Rothschild....siphoning oil from the Golan Heights of Syria. We spent "trillions" creating such golden opportunities.
The way I see it, money doesn't have to go directly from the government to my bank account for me to benefit.
We own rental properties, and even though we don't have Section 8 tenants, I can ackknowledge that Section 8 increases the overall demand for rentals (therefore putting upward pressure on rents).
For a more dramatic example, consider billionaire Mark Zuckerberg. Funding of ARPANET and NSFNET directly led to the creation of the Internet and the Web. Commercialization led to thousands of companies growing or being created, millions of jobs being created and trillions of dollars of activity worldwide, not just consumer-facing, but also business-to-business opportunities were created that never existed before.
Zuckerberg "built" Facebook, but what would he have if those Internet predecessors had not been funded? Where would our overall economy be?
Our country was founded without an income tax. If we want to go back to that principle, I'm all for it.
The Constitution states that one of the purposes of government is to promote the general welfare. The income tax was created as one way of helping to accomplish this. Since you are arguing from the position of someone in a higher tax bracket, Trump's tax cuts for the rich should be swelling your coffers. Yet still you complain. You'll have to excuse me but I'm fresh out of sympathy.
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Why should he pay a higher percentage than someone who doesn't make as much as he does? He's already paying more in terms of dollars.
In other words, you want a flat tax across the board and what you'd REALLY like is to pay a smaller percentage than you would even under a flat tax. You apparently have decided that amassing a fortune is the most noble outcome of life in a democracy. If you want to go back to the Constitution, nowhere does it state that a system of unbridled greed must go hand in hand with democracy.
In our society we have fallen into the trap of equating wealth with morality. The more money you have, the better a person you are. Those who are poor must be "bad" people or at the very least, stupid ones. This false paradigm gets cited more and more often as we go up the economic scale. Unfortunately for those in the upper income levels who love to cite such things, it's a lie. A rich man is not inherently a better person than a poor one. Many times the wealthy - especially the uber wealthy - shed integrity like a snake shedding its skin each time they climb another wrung higher up the ladder.
It is not a crime if you can't afford a Cessna and a wealthy man does not deserve a free ride anymore than a poor one does. And please don't even try to tell me that the wealthy do not benefit from all sorts of government welfare programs tailored just for them. Go speak with the CEO's at the "too big to fail"financial institutions who ran this country into the ground with their highly questionable if not downright illegal lending practices. The resulting Great Recession put working class families out on the streets while the bankers took their obscene profits and salted them safely away in off shore banks. To add insult to injury, they got astronomical bonuses for bringing the institutions they worked for to the brink of bankruptcy and never - not once - were they brought before a court of law and made to pay for the consequences of their actions.
Go ahead and defend them. I won't.
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First, our education system isn't one of the finest. It isn't even in the top 10. Second, everyone benefits from all of those items you listed, so why should the entrepreneur pay more than someone who works a simple j.o.b.?
Thanks for conceding up front that your refusal and the refusal of people like you to pay for the upkeep of our schools has resulted in the United States going to the end of the line when it comes to educating our children. Go out there and start a competitive business with China when your workers can't even run a simple computer program and see how long it takes before you've lost your market and your profits. The plain truth is that what you get out of something depends on what you're willing to put into it.
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The wealthiest man I ever personally knew had a 6th-grade education. Yet, he could buy anything he wanted with cold hard cash any time that he wanted to. His education had little to do with his wealth. He got wealthy because he found a way to get paid multiple times for a single piece of property and because he didn't waste his money on frivolous crap. After the first piece of property made him a bit of money, he repeated the process of buying acreage, selling the timber to a logging company, selling the scrap to a pallet mill and to firewood sellers, charging dump truck companies to dump fill dirt on the property, then smoothing the property out, splitting it up, and selling it in parcels at a profit. Other than basic math and reading skills which he could have been taught at home, how did the public education system benefit him in any way on his journey to wealth?
Go tell that hoary old story to Horatio Alger. If your pal got paid multiple times for a piece of property, he was engaged in a form of rent seeking - an endeavor of questionable integrity which we have come to foster in the latter stages of our system of rampant capitalism. In addition, you would have us believe that this meme of an American Success Story figured out how to profit buying and selling timber and real estate with the only knowledge under his belt being the multiplication tables. I call B.S.
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The question isn't whether or not one should pay taxes at all - at this point, that's a moot argument - but whether someone who earns more money than the average American should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. There isn't a single logical argument that supports a higher tax on high wage earners.
The wealthy don't benefit more from the programs funded by our taxes. If anything, they benefit less because they aren't taking advantage of government programs to offset their lack of income. What the wealthy benefit from is the willpower, perseverance, and ability that is involved in creating a greater source of income that the average joe who complains about rich people is unwilling to put forth.
Quit repeating yourself. I have already responded to these points above. The wealthy are benefiting hand over fist from tax breaks and programs designed to increase their already considerable income levels. Again, just look at what a sweet deal the wealthy are getting from Trump's tax breaks for millionaires. The wealthy do NOT have the market cornered on "willpower, perseverance, and ability." If you doubt me, just look at your president* who spends his days on the golf course and his nights absorbed in making childish complaints on twitter.
You hubris is actually rather amusing, but I prefer to get my comedy from Steve Colbert, thanks all the same.
My cousin works at a tax place and he tels me folks with big money seem to always be more bitter when they find out they have to pay more. Not aure what the proportion is. But is jt really crippling?
Most of the rich people I know don't complain about taxes much.
This! I pay taxes into programs that for some reason, neither me, nor any of my family and friends seem to be eligible to take advantage of. Case in point. We have programs where shuttle buses are used to pick up children with disabilities right from the house and take them to school, or to pick up the elderly and take them to major shopping centers and other depots while the rest of us tax paying citizens have to either walk in the rain to the bus stops, or spend money buying a car to get to our destinations
You just answered your own confusion. The people are elderly and the children have disabilities.
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Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler
Gee, may I touch the hem of your robe?
CHECK YOUR PREMISES
Your reply was made with the unspoken assumption that anyone who can't (or won't) buy a Cessna must therefore be a welfare cheat.
It follows that the US is made up of two classes of people - welfare cheats and the nobility who can do no wrong- Cessna owners.
Why do you sully yourself by interacting with the great unwashed masses here on the CD politics forum?
Ha I wish I could cheat welfare. I work too hard to make what I'm making and would be able to pay off more debt. I kinda don't blame people who lie about their information considering the way the system is. I do in a way because they should be sharing their secret.
Last edited by Nickchick; 04-16-2018 at 08:16 PM..
My cousin works at a tax place and he tels me folks with big money seem to always be more bitter when they find out they have to pay more. Not aure what the proportion is. But is jt really crippling?
I have no problem with it. We need a smaller, more limited gov't. Starve the beast.
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