Forsyth county ranked second most conservative county in US (Atlanta: appointed, transplants)

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

How could this be? So rich that they can use tax dodges? So poor that they don't pay at all?

I'm married and own a home, but the itemized deductions I can legally take are a mere fraction of our total taxable household income. Since I haven't been able to afford much in the way of investments over the past decade (for the reason, see layoff, then rinse and repeat), we're paying a pretty healthy chunk in both fed and state taxes.

Surely our situation isn't that unusual?

Addition:

Ah... This might help to explain it: 47% of households owe no tax - and their ranks are growing - Sep. 30, 2009

Indeed. However notice from that article:

"Of course, income taxes don't tell the whole story. Workers are also subject to payroll taxes, which support Social Security and Medicare."

If people are comparing with other countries (Canada is the one I know best), other countries don't typically break out their social security and healthcare funding into a separate tax named something other than "income tax". So the issue here is that 47% of US households aren't helping pay for federal programs other than social security and medicare.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

Ah... This might help to explain it: 47% of households owe no tax - and their ranks are growing - Sep. 30, 2009

And the bigger problem is that the top 1% of households, which made 19% of pre-tax income, paid 39% of all individual income taxes. The trend is similar if you count income taxes, payroll taxes like FICA/Medicare, excise taxes and capital gains taxes. The top fifth of households paid 69% of all federal taxes. The top 1% paid 28%.

We have a system in the country today where all it takes is to satisfy the 50%+1 voters that you will keep the status quo and soak the "rich" and then as long as they buy what you're selling, you can keep getting elected.

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by neil0311

And the bigger problem is that the top 1% of households, which made 19% of pre-tax income, paid 39% of all individual income taxes. The trend is similar if you count income taxes, payroll taxes like FICA/Medicare, excise taxes and capital gains taxes. The top fifth of households paid 69% of all federal taxes. The top 1% paid 28%.

We have a system in the country today where all it takes is to satisfy the 50%+1 voters that you will keep the status quo and soak the "rich" and then as long as they buy what you're selling, you can keep getting elected.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship..."

Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) got it right over 200 years ago.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by LovinDecatur

Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) got it right over 200 years ago.

Indeed. I finished my taxes yesterday, and when I total what I've paid in federal and state income taxes, FICA/Medicare, state/local sales tax, property tax, and on and on....it makes my head spin.

I can honestly say that paying to help support our country and state has never been a problem for me. What really pisses me off is that many people pay absolutely nothing, others take what I pay for granted and feel entitled to it, and still others label me as "greedy" or "selfish" for not wanting to pay more of what I make. They rant about "fair" shares, but the reality is that nothing is at all "fair" about our tax system or life in general.

If the tax system was "fair" then every citizen over age 18 who had a minimum amount of income (of course that would be the subject of vigorous debate) would be subject to an income tax of exactly the same percentage. If you make more....you pay more....but at the same rate. Now that's truly paying your fair share.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by neil0311

And the bigger problem is that the top 1% of households, which made 19% of pre-tax income, paid 39% of all individual income taxes. The trend is similar if you count income taxes, payroll taxes like FICA/Medicare, excise taxes and capital gains taxes. The top fifth of households paid 69% of all federal taxes. The top 1% paid 28%.

If most households make $50,000 or less and the top 1% make $100,000,000 or more in a year, I'm not sure that I'm very sympathetic about the percentage difference. That 28% still leaves them with a lot more to work with each year than most folks will see in a lifetime.

Jealousy? Perhaps, but they can also afford to contribute. After all, chances are good that a sizable percentage of their money was made through the efforts of other people, not just themselves, and since their decisions on society and business carry that much more weight than that of the common person, it seems to me to be poetic justice to let them shoulder more of the responsibility in other ways. They can always choose not to be super-wealthy, right?

We have a system in the country today where all it takes is to satisfy the 50%+1 voters that you will keep the status quo and soak the "rich" and then as long as they buy what you're selling, you can keep getting elected.

It isn't quite that simple, but it does seem to trend that way at times.

While the representative democracy we have in place works, and while i'm also a far of the European parliamentary system, especially in the way it seems to force compromises, I don't know if it would work well here. I'd love to see it tried, tho!

[AcidSnake]

There are probably a couple of "Joe the Plumbers" here on the net. I think that guys like that took this conservative mantra that was on the wane since the end of the 1960's and experienced a rebirth in the 1980's a'la Lee Atwater to its most extreme conclusion, when looking at the current events as they are now.

I will bet you that if you take "diversity" out of the equation, more than likely "Joe the Plumber" would have no problems demanding that the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share. Unfortunately in this world, human beings are depressingly easy to divide and conquer.

All one has to do is milked & agitate man's natural primordial fear of the "other" then create an ideology & worldview to help him/her justify that fear. It is this fear that the "other" will grab resources that supposedly doesn't belong to them and it is this fanatical fear of the "other" that enables this zeal for war at the expense of human prosperity & peace.

It's so tragically simple a caveman can do it...

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

Regardless of practicability, the American Dream is certainly very durable. "Joe the Plumber" was a great example. Here was a guy complaining about Obama's proposed tax policies for people making over $250,000 per year. Yet, investigation revealed that Joe was making $40,000 per year, was behind on his taxes and lacked a plumbing license. The guy was squarely in the income bracket standing to benefit from Obama's policies, yet he was upset because people far richer than him stood to lose, even though it seemed overwhelmingly obvious that he stood a snowball's chance in h*ll of ever being that rich himself.

Same with the neighbors on my street, in an older, cheaper East Cobb subdivision. They're pretty solidly lower middle class I'd estimate, with few family incomes hitting $100K. Lots of McCain signs and no Obama signs (except on my lawn) during the 2008 election. My dad, visiting from Canada was incredulous. "Do your neighbors not understand where their self interest lies?" he asked. Evidently, like many, many Americans, no they don't. Apparently they figure we have to watch out for the interests of the rich, because their drywalling business, teaching job, etc. is someday magically going to vault them into Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus's tax bracket. So they favor policies that favor the rich over themselves, because they're dreaming the American Dream. I guess it makes people happy.

[AcidSnake]

I would like to see a version of the European Parliamentary system tried at the state level. I doubt it would ever work or even be attempted in any of the southern states, but maybe this system could work in a relatively homogenized state like Utah or New Hampshire.

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

While the representative democracy we have in place works, and while i'm also a far of the European parliamentary system, especially in the way it seems to force compromises, I don't know if it would work well here. I'd love to see it tried, tho!

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by AcidSnake

...

I will bet you that if you take "diversity" out of the equation, more than likely "Joe the Plumber" would have no problems demanding that the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share. Unfortunately in this world, human beings are depressingly easy to divide and conquer.

All one has to do is milked & agitate man's natural primordial fear of the "other" then create an ideology & worldview to help him/her justify that fear. It is this fear that the "other" will grab resources that supposedly doesn't belong to them and it is this fanatical fear of the "other" that enables this zeal for war at the expense of human prosperity & peace.

It's so tragically simple a caveman can do it...

Yes!

Yes!!!


People can say want they want--however, many people align with the "conservative" mantra because of their issues with "diversity."

If race, etc. wasn't so much of an issue with some people, many so-called "conservatives" wouldn't be "conservatives." In some ways, it's like a polically-correct/acceptable National White Party, really.


http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8043.html




Some parallels (somewhat)...

National Party (South Africa) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom..._(South_Africa)

[Zel Ya]

Our tax system is a mess. There's no question about it. Getting truthful and accurate information about anything from Washington is nearly impossible.

You can't reform the system unless uniform accounting principles are instituted across the board. And it's quite obvious that the accounting books are cooked for political reasons.

In the future, it appears that America will have some form of the Value Added Tax ( VAT ).

[Bullbear]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Yes!

Yes!!!

People can say want they want--however, many people align with the "conservative" mantra because of their issues with "diversity."

If race, etc. wasn't so much of an issue with some people, many so-called "conservatives" wouldn't be "conservatives." In some ways, it's like a polically-correct/acceptable National White Party, really.

Kruse, K.M.: White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism.

Some parallels (somewhat)...

National Party (South Africa) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Freedom Front Plus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As a white male, let me counter with the following:
- The conservative movement does not discriminate - anyone is welcome to "join" the conservative movement who is so inclined. ANYONE
- The conservative movement has no race-based ideologies. NONE. As you point out, people (like you) can say what they want. But that doesnt make it true.
- The more charges of racism get thrown around at every possible chance (OJ wasnt guilty -- it was racism), the less power the charge has and the more like a bogus excuse it sounds.
- In a world where diversity is worshipped, white hetereosexual males do find it aggravating that they are the ONLY demographic not considered diverse. Thus, if diverse = good, and white straight man = non-diverse, or "bad", well....and people are surprised that we dont embrace our own demonization....???
- There are non-conservative white males aplenty -- see Obama's cabinet, for example. But why are there so few non-caucasian conservatives? Perhaps their anti-white person views keep them from being so? Hmmmmm.....
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