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Status:
"Moldy Tater Gangrene, even before Moscow Marge."
(set 4 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,790 posts, read 3,601,582 times
Reputation: 5697
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Quote:
Originally Posted by No_Recess
You voted yes for slavery.
Congrats.
I suppose taxation for defense and police protection is slavery too? I don't want my money to help maintain an orderly (i.e. reasonably safe) society. Physical protection against invaders and criminals, protection against people who fall through the cracks. People are people, makes no difference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by evilnewbie
That's a useful argument, you hire an electrician and tell them that their services are free because you are poor, you go to grocery and get free groceries because the grocery owner is wealthy, you go and buy a house but tell the bank they are rich and you don't have to pay mortgage, it's really nice to take from someone else while they can't... that's a fantastic world you have there...
There is public housing, but you no doubt consider that a form of backdoor theft. If you don't, then the rest of what I say is not for you.
Poor people as a whole - and certainly the struggling working poor - already have a strong work ethic. Why not pay them a living wage (if nothing else) so they won't have to depend on public services as much (aside from the ones the rich pay for like national defense, police, infrastructure upkeep, consumer product safety, etc.) - and perhaps pay more taxes as well. That also includes keeping a huge mass of impoverished off the streets so there aren't as many crimes, revolutions, and such. Two monarchs, one French and another one Russian, learned that lesson a little bit too late to be personally useful, if you're going by purely utilitarian self-interest motives.
Status:
"Moldy Tater Gangrene, even before Moscow Marge."
(set 4 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,790 posts, read 3,601,582 times
Reputation: 5697
Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW
I figure most of the very rich got rich by using market manipulation and crooked deals. So they can repatriate some of their ill-gotten gold back to the people they stole it from. The tax rate should be zero for those under the 90th percentile and 90% for those in the 99th percentile. Even with that tax rate they will still make a lot more then the rest of us.
The first part I absolutely agree with, but the second is going a bit far. I think some taxes should be paid by anyone who gets a living wage or other non-earnings income, even if a low rate for the lower living wage end. The first $30,000 anyone earns should be tax free (adjusted annually for inflation), then taxes only on the dollars earned beyond that amount. That will help keep people aware of what it takes to maintain something of an orderly and just society.
Hell no. We should move from an income tax to a progressive consumption tax. The more you spend, you more tax you pay. It would reward saving money, and stop punishing people for making more money.
Lyndar got it right. Our problem is we do not have Capitalism. What we have is corrupt Crony Capitalism. This system, with its ability to buy political protection by donating big money to both political parties, is much closer to the Italian Fascism of Mussolini in the 1930's. It is in no way a market based system. a market system would be far too much of a risk to the big money that controls the economy in their favor at the great cost to the rest of us.
Eliminating the concentration of wealth that allows that economic control is why I propose a tax system based on all income from all sources, including illegal, with a base deduction equal to the 90th percentile and steeply progressive taxes above that level. This would place the burden of governing the country on the people that own most of the economy and give those under 90th percentile the money to invest in themselves, their families and their businesses.
I am not trying to kill Capitalism. I am trying to eliminate the corruption that has almost killed it in this and other places.
Yes (as I voted), IF you define "owe" as "an obligation to make sure other members of society are at the very least NOT living in substandard housing, starving, or denied basic education opportunities". I also voted "Yes" on the basis that increasing wealth gaps tend to create serious power imbalances in government, society, and so forth - which is toxic to democracy (widespread poverty or not).
You're taking a lot of heat for this comment but if you take capitalism to the extreme, you end up with slave labor and wealthy owners. Conversely, if the government taxes the rich into oblivion, you get slavery and Wealthy owners (politician).. so the ideal, hopefully, there is a middle ground between the two.
What's that saying? Capitalism is just man taking advantage of man, while communism/socialism is the reverse of that.
No. Plenty of wealthy people earned all that they have (they did in fact, build it). Even the ones that inherited their money don't owe anyone anything. It's their property to do with as they please. Some people just get lucky.
You mean people like Ben Carson, Muhamed Ali, O. Simpson, Kaepernick, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Maxine Waters, George Foreman, Shirley Chisholm, Condi Rice, Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, etc.
THOSE "oppressed" people?
The first person I thought about after reading the post you are replying to above was Ben Carson.
Lyndar got it right. Our problem is we do not have Capitalism. What we have is corrupt Crony Capitalism. This system, with its ability to buy political protection by donating big money to both political parties, is much closer to the Italian Fascism of Mussolini in the 1930's. It is in no way a market based system. a market system would be far too much of a risk to the big money that controls the economy in their favor at the great cost to the rest of us.
Eliminating the concentration of wealth that allows that economic control is why I propose a tax system based on all income from all sources, including illegal, with a base deduction equal to the 90th percentile and steeply progressive taxes above that level. This would place the burden of governing the country on the people that own most of the economy and give those under 90th percentile the money to invest in themselves, their families and their businesses.
I am not trying to kill Capitalism. I am trying to eliminate the corruption that has almost killed it in this and other places.
Re the bolded, Lyndarn isn't part of 'we'.....She's a Canadian who lives in Canada.
New data Released by the IRS has just shown that the top 1% income earners pays more in tax than the bottom 95% combined.
An analysis of IRS data by the Tax Foundation shows that the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government, the highest percentage in modern history. While the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden.
No they don't, according to Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders and MSNBC.
They're either flat out lying, are incredibly stupid, or think their voter base/viewers are incredibly stupid. The IRS publishes the data on what effective tax rate each income group is paying, according to the tax returns they've processed.
Latest IRS published average effective federal income tax rate, by income level:
Top 0.1%: 27.67%
Top 1%: 27.16%
Top 1-5%: 23.61%
Top 5-10%: 13.73%
Top 10-25%: 10.73%
Top 25-50%: 7.48%%
Bottom 50%: 3.45%
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The first person I thought about after reading the post you are replying to above was Ben Carson.
