Why not cut spending AND TAXES? (Commerce: homes, unemployment, school)

[CarawayDJ]

Originally Posted by TimC2462

"Earn" is very subjective these days when it comes to soaring income level for the wealthiest Americans. I have no problem with people earning their wealthy income as long as the playing field is level.

I can't disagree with that. That said, when the playing field isn't level the victim is usually another rich company or person, not Joe Smoe. My response to most statements of this nature is to say "please walk the dog for me" and provide a step by step example of how something can be. What would be an example of someone of ordinary income becoming uber wealthy by exploiting a playing field that wasn't level? I'm sure there may be examples, but they are likely the exception and not the norm.

[NewToCA]

Originally Posted by CarawayDJ

Don't those charts just point out the obvious; the rich have more than the poor? Yes, Bill Gates will have a lot more than us folks. He has more for good reason though. If you trace the history of most wealthy people, for every greedy person who got rich by methods less than noble there are several who got rich by working harder, being smarter, taking significant risk, and providing great benefits to society in the form of the products and/or services their businesses produce. I thank Bill Gate and Steve Jobs for their innovation. I thank the founders of Google for how they have enhanced our lives. I thank the guys at Qualcomm. I thank.... The people who got uber wealthy didn't get there by creating things nobody wanted or were of little benefit to anyone. Perhaps everyone has Gordon Gekko in mind when they think of a rich person...

Actually, the charts demostrate that the rich have significantly more income than they historically have had. I'm not arguing nobility, if you've ever looked at my extensive postings in the Politics Forum, where I used to mod, you'd see that I generally have been (and continue to be) very supportive of the open economic system, barely a socialist at all.

However, when you look at the evolution of income distribution over the past 40 or 50 years, the shift towards the wealthy is rather startling and obvious.

So, if you are going to collect revenue, it seems that you need to go to where the greatest % of the income growth lies, and that clearly is at the top of the scale.

[CarawayDJ]

Originally Posted by NewToCA

Actually, the charts demostrate that the rich have significantly more income than they historically have had. I'm not arguing nobility, if you've ever looked at my extensive postings in the Politics Forum, where I used to mod, you'd see that I generally have been (and continue to be) very supportive of the open economic system, barely a socialist at all.

However, when you look at the evolution of income distribution over the past 40 or 50 years, the shift towards the wealthy is rather startling and obvious.

So, if you are going to collect revenue, it seems that you need to go to where the greatest % of the income growth lies, and that clearly is at the top of the scale.

I hear you. While you have said nothing to indicate you are like this, many people will look at charts like that and assume there is some impropriety involved. They will assume that the rich have widened the gap because they must be doing something evil. They are taking money from the poor. Those same people are oblivious to all of the logical reasons for this happening. They fail to take into consideration the ever increasing globalization of the world economy that has expanded the markets. All of these uber wealthy have probably benefited from the globalization of the economy. They fail to take into account advances in technology that have allowed some to rapidly gain wealth. They fail to take into account how much more efficient and easy it is to invest and move money, or the information management systems that provide unprecedented analysis of investments in order to make smarter decisions.

That only addresses the causes, but not your central point; should they be therefore taxed more? There is no definitive answer to this. It will always be subjective. I personally feel that if you strip out of the budget most unnecessary expenditures and most inefficiencies and still need revenue, then obviously taxes must be raised. It's surely easier to tax those who can afford it first. Notice that I say strip the budget of "most" unnecessary expenditures and efficiencies and not "all". You will never remove all waste. Part of the reason for that is simple; people seldom even agree on what is waste. What one person considers an unnecessary program might be considered useful and important to someone else.

Where I think politicians lie is when they allude that increasing taxes on the rich will solve the problems. So let's say we did go after the uber wealthy and increase their tax burden. What is the dent on the budget? It won't be enough. Maybe this is why countries that have demonstrated a high amount of social responsibility tend to have high taxes across the board.

And then you have to ask yourself where the breaking point is. What is the tax rate for the wealthy that you cannot exceed without it causing a negative effect? Is it 40%, 50%, 60%? Wealthy people do not stuff their money in a mattress and sleep on it. They put it to work through various investments. That's how they make more money. So you also have to examine the impact of having less funds going into investments. Here again is something that many people interpret in a negative way. They hear investment and they think of those evil Wall Street brokers. They completely forget that it's also your 401K, the small business loan a mom and pop store owner receives, the startup capital for some promising new technology company, and so on. And then you have all of the charitable contributions. What if you took 50% of Bill Gates' wealth? How many people would be negatively impacted by that? And finally, many people forget that the millions or billions these guys have is AFTER taxes. They already paid taxes on their income. Do you now tax their savings and investments principal once again?

Nobody argues whether or not there is gravity, the sun is hot, or if ice is cold. Those are indisputable facts. We will always argue over taxes, social policy, and politics. Even the stats and charts seldom represent the whole truth. What is the saying... there are three types of lies; lies, dam lies, and stats. You can include or exclude data, demographics, and a whole host of other information to paint any picture you want.

[NewToCA]

Agreed, the budget should be critically evaluated and scrubbed before raising revenue. It is my support of ideas such as this which led me to place postings such as this:

//www.city-data.com/forum/calif...ificantly.html

[JohnG72]

1999-2000 California State Budget:

$82,281 Million

2007-2008 California State Budget:

$129,659 Million(50% increase in 8 years :O )

2010-2011 California State Budget:

$122,724 Million

Clearly the state of California has not cut its budget nearly enough. By what I can see, 30-40% cuts are almost mandatory before any tax increases are considered.

http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budg...ts/CHART-B.pdf

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by esmith143

Because we've been cutting spending every year for the last three or four years and there are no easy cutting avenues left. If you want to balance the budget, repeal prop 13 and raise property tax rates to the nationwide average of 2%/year, and all of a sudden you'll find that there's so much money in the budget that you can actually afford to cut the sales tax or the income tax.

BTW, tax-friendly states aren't doing very well budget wise, if you haven't noticed.

California certainly does not meet any definition of Tax Friendly in my book.

Getting rid of Prop 13, a measure swept into law by a grass roots movement, would be the final blow to California Tax Payers... might as well close-up shop and move.

My tax rate is in excess of 1.5% and pushes higher each year.

If raising taxes is the answer, all that is required is voter support to override Prop 13 constraints... it's not that hard.

Voters in my city have approved a myriad of additional assesements...

[ZhugeLiang]

Originally Posted by NewToCA

We had an election last November, Meg Whitman proposed this process, and was thumped.

No, she didn't propose all of that. The death knell of her campaign was her engagement in Hispandering. One message in English, and another in Spanish. She couldn't give a straight answer on any policy question.

Whitman lost because she was a terrible candidate.

[Vascodagama]

Originally Posted by ZhugeLiang

No, she didn't propose all of that. The death knell of her campaign was her engagement in Hispandering. One message in English, and another in Spanish. She couldn't give a straight answer on any policy question.

Whitman lost because she was a terrible candidate.

The election is over

Jerry Brown is a good candidate?

So far he has done nothing ... as expected

[TimC2462]

Originally Posted by Don9

The election is over

Jerry Brown is a good candidate?

So far he has done nothing ... as expected

He's been bought out by the unions.

[nullgeo]

How the rich soaked the rest of us | Richard Wolff | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

"... the richest Americans have dramatically lowered their income tax burden since 1945, both absolutely and relative to the tax burdens of the middle income groups and the poor.

Historical tax rates for the highest and lowest income earners Consider two further points based on this graph: first, if the highest income earners today were required to pay the same rate that they paid for many years after 1945, the federal government would need far lower deficits to support the private economy through its current crisis; and second, those tax-the-rich years after 1945 experienced far lower unemployment and far faster economic growth than we have had for years."

Income inequality in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Data from the United States Department of Commerce and Internal Revenue Service indicate that income inequality has been increasing since the 1970s,[10][11][12][13][14] whereas it had been declining during the mid 20th century.[15][16] As of 2006, the United States had one of the highest levels of income inequality, as measured through the Gini index, among high income countries, comparable to that of some middle income countries such as Russia or Turkey,[17] being one of only few developed countries where inequality has increased since 1980.[18]
Alan Greenspan stated before Congress in 2005 [19]:
“ As I've often said, this is not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing. ”

Read more: //www.city-data.com/forum/calif...#ixzz1FkqpwAB5