Raise taxes on the rich

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

If the rich are taxed too much guess who they get rid of to pay the tax and stay rich..........YOU.  And if they dont buy stuff that rich peoople buy, who gets laid off.........YOU.

Dude, they get their money in the first place from the labours of their serfs. What do you think, the money comes out their ass and they employ people purely out of the goodness of their hearts?

I can just imagine it now - I get my 1 mil./year from 50 peons labouring in my, oh lets say convenience stores.  Now, I have to pay 50% on the part above 200K instead of 30%.  Ok, lets close stores, fire lots of people, and bring my income down to 200K.  Yes, I really benefit from that.  Do you people ever think about whether your right-wing talking points make any actual sense?

I'll cut my expenses (peon surfs) just enough to make up the difference in income, then make the others work harder, not close stores to bring my income down.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If the rich are taxed too much guess who they get rid of to pay the tax and stay rich..........YOU.  And if they dont buy stuff that rich peoople buy, who gets laid off.........YOU.

Dude, they get their money in the first place from the labours of their serfs. What do you think, the money comes out their ass and they employ people purely out of the goodness of their hearts?

I can just imagine it now - I get my 1 mil./year from 50 peons labouring in my, oh lets say convenience stores.  Now, I have to pay 50% on the part above 200K instead of 30%.  Ok, lets close stores, fire lots of people, and bring my income down to 200K.  Yes, I really benefit from that.  Do you people ever think about whether your right-wing talking points make any actual sense?

I'll cut my expenses (peon surfs) just enough to make up the difference in income, then make the others work harder, not close stores to bring my income down.

Makes no sense.

[Alexander Hamilton]

If the rich are taxed too much guess who they get rid of to pay the tax and stay rich..........YOU.  And if they dont buy stuff that rich peoople buy, who gets laid off.........YOU.

Dude, they get their money in the first place from the labours of their serfs. What do you think, the money comes out their ass and they employ people purely out of the goodness of their hearts?

I can just imagine it now - I get my 1 mil./year from 50 peons labouring in my, oh lets say convenience stores.  Now, I have to pay 50% on the part above 200K instead of 30%.  Ok, lets close stores, fire lots of people, and bring my income down to 200K.  Yes, I really benefit from that.  Do you people ever think about whether your right-wing talking points make any actual sense?

I'll cut my expenses (peon surfs) just enough to make up the difference in income, then make the others work harder, not close stores to bring my income down.

Makes no sense.

Makes perfect sense. There isn't exactly a labor shortage. Any workers who aren't performing up to par will and should get cut, being replaced by those who have better resumes and are more beneficial to the company. I don't think any of you were raised in households with people who actually had to operate a business, judging by your horribly misinformed posts.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

If the rich are taxed too much guess who they get rid of to pay the tax and stay rich..........YOU.  And if they dont buy stuff that rich peoople buy, who gets laid off.........YOU.

Dude, they get their money in the first place from the labours of their serfs. What do you think, the money comes out their ass and they employ people purely out of the goodness of their hearts?

I can just imagine it now - I get my 1 mil./year from 50 peons labouring in my, oh lets say convenience stores.  Now, I have to pay 50% on the part above 200K instead of 30%.  Ok, lets close stores, fire lots of people, and bring my income down to 200K.  Yes, I really benefit from that.  Do you people ever think about whether your right-wing talking points make any actual sense?

I'll cut my expenses (peon surfs) just enough to make up the difference in income, then make the others work harder, not close stores to bring my income down.

Makes no sense.

Makes perfect sense. There isn't exactly a labor shortage. Any workers who aren't performing up to par will and should get cut, being replaced by those who have better resumes and are more beneficial to the company. I don't think any of you were raised in households with people who actually had to operate a business, judging by your horribly misinformed posts.

I'm just speaking as a small business owner (a rich I suppose).  Everyone has their point of view.....oh and Opie...right wing talking points???  My post record here clearly shows I rail against the far right as much as the true libs do.....so you're simply misinformed.

[War on Want]

Does anyone who supports the "tax the rich" mantra have a real job and family responsibilities?

Contrary to conservative belief... you are not the only one paying taxes.

My sister is a mother who works 2 jobs to make ends meet.  Her jobs don't offer medical insurance, so she has none.  Her child has had medical assistance on and off, but they keep cutting it off and then she has to go through the whole application process again just to find out that her child was always eligible.  But that doesn't stop the bills from racking up.

She owes about $2500 in medical bills because she cut herself really bad last winter and had to go to the hospital in the ambulance.

Should she just go out and get a 3rd and 4th job when you cut her state support off (she had WIC and medical assistance for her son)?

Should she just not take her kid to the doctor?

All so the "rich guy" signing her paychecks (actually more like middle class small business owner) can get that extra yacht.  Poor rich guy.

Please offer a solution.  Without any kind of welfare of course, since that's what you're proposing.


Or should we consider my mom who suffered a debilitating stroke after her surgeon cut open a hernia that spread infection into her blood and caused massive hemorrhaging in her brain?  She worked her ass off for several years after that stroke, hobbling over to the lodge every morning at 7:30am, often falling (which led to sprained ankles and a broken leg), so she could run her business.  She was a dyed in the wool Republican... unfortunately she had to forego medical insurance for herself due to the extreme cost and the struggles she had with starting and running a family run resort.

Luckily in Minnesota we understand that sometimes life just plain sucks and that the least we can do is soften the blow.  Her huge medical bills were covered by the state.  She eventually lost the resort in the process, but her life was saved.

Then she finally got a job working for a friend in the hospitality business as a manager at a hotel.  Unfortunately her frail condition led to a series of falls that led to her needing brain surgeries due to a subdural hematoma.

She took the risk, opened her own business... and luck knocked her on her ass.. and she tried desperately to get back up and make things work.. but she got knocked down again.  Her doctor ordered her not to work at all... still, she took courses for medical transcription and did that for a while despite only having one working hand for typing.  Eventually that got too stressful and she had to quit that.

She paid her dues.  She lived the American dream... sending lunchmeat sandwiches with my dad to work on his 12-14 days so they could pay the mortgage on their new home and she could stay home with us 3 kids... then she took her dream and made it a reality with our resort. 

But she got burned by the Republicans when they started cutting the medical assistance budgets and she started getting notices saying she was no longer eligible (even though her medical expenses would have taken up 80% of the family's income).  She listened to Tim Pawlenty talk about how "some Minnesotans would have to learn to do with less" when asked about the 30,000 people he was kicking off hte state medical insurance program, knowing full well some of them could die (like my mom)... all so we could avoid a tax increase on the richest Minnesotans.

So, perhaps as you can see... it's very personal and I don't like it when people tell other people who are already worked to the bone and underpaid "to just go get a job for Christ's sake" or to "pick themselves up by the bootstraps"

Just how do you expect someone to improve themselves if they are disabled or have children to take care of, have no credit, and face ever dwindling resources to help pay for furthering education?

Oh, I know... that yacht is damn important.  But seriously.. that guy making the yacht can just as easily learn how to make a Crestliner or Lund boat and sell them to regular hardworking people.

For your reference:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-emotion.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-pity.html

Believe it or not I think that emotion has a place in politics. Besides the facts show that low taxes keeps the wealth concentrated at the top. Which is not very desirable for countries in this day and age.

[Vepres]

There is nothing wrong with raising taxes on the rich to a point. However, you can't get rid of a more than 1 trillion dollar deficit by taxing the rich alone. Certainly raising their taxes a few percentage points and cracking down on tax evaders is a very good thing and can contribute a lot to the government's revenue.

You know what, the rich mostly don't care if you raise their taxes. If I was making 250K a year, I wouldn't particularly care if the government took another 10k from it in taxes. Which is why many super-rich congressional districts actually elect Democrats.

There comes a point, though, where raising their taxes is detrimental to the economy. For example, with taxes at the current rate, a rich person could invest in a small business, which creates jobs. If his taxes are too high (I'm talking over 50% federal income tax), he doesn't invest that money, and instead saves as much as he can.

Now, I sincerely doubt that Obama or the Democrats would do that. The point is, if you want to deal with a budget deficit this large, then you must either have an across the board tax hike, or you can cut spending.

But you know what? I looked over the 2009 tax brackets, and I have to say that Republican's rhetoric is overblown. It doesn't even exceed 30% until you make 372K a year. At that point you probably have so many investments that it doesn't matter that much.

The thing I don't like about Democrats on this issue is that their answer to any questions about the deficit is to raise taxes on the wealthy. As I said above, you either have to raise taxes on everybody, or cut spending. Few Democrats will admit this, which is a shame.

[Badger]

Does anyone who supports the "tax the rich" mantra have a real job and family responsibilities?

Hell yes to both here. I fully understand that every penny of taxes cut for the rich in the last 30 years is money that are either raised on working folks like you and me (e.g. payroll taxes), cuts to middle class government services (education funding, etc) or most likely simply added to the national debt for I and my son to pay off the rich's credit card bill later.

[Mint]

There is nothing wrong with raising taxes on the rich to a point. However, you can't get rid of a more than 1 trillion dollar deficit by taxing the rich alone. Certainly raising their taxes a few percentage points and cracking down on tax evaders is a very good thing and can contribute a lot to the government's revenue.

You know what, the rich mostly don't care if you raise their taxes. If I was making 250K a year, I wouldn't particularly care if the government took another 10k from it in taxes. Which is why many super-rich congressional districts actually elect Democrats.

There comes a point, though, where raising their taxes is detrimental to the economy. For example, with taxes at the current rate, a rich person could invest in a small business, which creates jobs. If his taxes are too high (I'm talking over 50% federal income tax), he doesn't invest that money, and instead saves as much as he can.

Now, I sincerely doubt that Obama or the Democrats would do that. The point is, if you want to deal with a budget deficit this large, then you must either have an across the board tax hike, or you can cut spending.

But you know what? I looked over the 2009 tax brackets, and I have to say that Republican's rhetoric is overblown. It doesn't even exceed 30% until you make 372K a year. At that point you probably have so many investments that it doesn't matter that much.

The thing I don't like about Democrats on this issue is that their answer to any questions about the deficit is to raise taxes on the wealthy. As I said above, you either have to raise taxes on everybody, or cut spending. Few Democrats will admit this, which is a shame.

33% of your income plus local taxes (state income, property tax, sales, etc.) is horrendous. In some states you can wind up paying well over 50% of your income in taxes. I don't think anybody should be forced to pay that much, especially not professionals or small business owners. Those people work extremely hard to get where they are generally speaking, and often at great cost (risk) to themselves - higher taxes could discourage that.

Raising taxes on the middle class and poor in addition to the rich through something like a national sales tax or VAT is even worse in my opinion. That would put an even higher tax burden on individuals already being hit hard not just by the economy but often by other local tax raises (e.g. property tax). If you think the protests now are bad just imagine what things will be like if they attempt that. The public would be furious, and rightfully so.

What I think we need to do is to put the government on a diet, by reforming our entitlement systems and downsizing the various government bureaucracies we've established over the years. Even more importantly, we need to stop propping up all the 'too big to fails' out there. When we're running deficits in the trillions, our government is telling us the cost of the bail outs alone could be $23 trillion (nearly twice our current gdp!) and countries like china are buying less and less of our debt I think it's obvious where this will lead if we do not reverse course.

TL;DR: Stop taxing so much, stop spending so much, stop subsidizing proven failures, establish an economy based on savings and production instead of debt and mindless consumption.

[Antonio the Sixth]

33% of your income plus local taxes (state income, property tax, sales, etc.) is horrendous. In some states you can wind up paying well over 50% of your income in taxes. I don't think anybody should be forced to pay that much, especially not professionals or small business owners. Those people work extremely hard to get where they are generally speaking, and often at great cost (risk) to themselves - higher taxes could discourage that.

Don't worry, there will ever be rich people. That is fair and normal. What is not normal is that someone could earn 1000 times the minimum wage. And to prevent that we need taxes far higher than 50%. Do you really think multi-billionaries would really be bothered to pay 80% of their income ( [Richius]OMG EVIL COMMUNIST[/Richius] ) to the state ?

[Vepres]

There is nothing wrong with raising taxes on the rich to a point. However, you can't get rid of a more than 1 trillion dollar deficit by taxing the rich alone. Certainly raising their taxes a few percentage points and cracking down on tax evaders is a very good thing and can contribute a lot to the government's revenue.

You know what, the rich mostly don't care if you raise their taxes. If I was making 250K a year, I wouldn't particularly care if the government took another 10k from it in taxes. Which is why many super-rich congressional districts actually elect Democrats.

There comes a point, though, where raising their taxes is detrimental to the economy. For example, with taxes at the current rate, a rich person could invest in a small business, which creates jobs. If his taxes are too high (I'm talking over 50% federal income tax), he doesn't invest that money, and instead saves as much as he can.

Now, I sincerely doubt that Obama or the Democrats would do that. The point is, if you want to deal with a budget deficit this large, then you must either have an across the board tax hike, or you can cut spending.

But you know what? I looked over the 2009 tax brackets, and I have to say that Republican's rhetoric is overblown. It doesn't even exceed 30% until you make 372K a year. At that point you probably have so many investments that it doesn't matter that much.

The thing I don't like about Democrats on this issue is that their answer to any questions about the deficit is to raise taxes on the wealthy. As I said above, you either have to raise taxes on everybody, or cut spending. Few Democrats will admit this, which is a shame.

33% of your income plus local taxes (state income, property tax, sales, etc.) is horrendous. In some states you can wind up paying well over 50% of your income in taxes. I don't think anybody should be forced to pay that much, especially not professionals or small business owners. Those people work extremely hard to get where they are generally speaking, and often at great cost (risk) to themselves - higher taxes could discourage that.

Raising taxes on the middle class and poor in addition to the rich through something like a national sales tax or VAT is even worse in my opinion. That would put an even higher tax burden on individuals already being hit hard not just by the economy but often by other local tax raises (e.g. property tax). If you think the protests now are bad just imagine what things will be like if they attempt that. The public would be furious, and rightfully so.

What I think we need to do is to put the government on a diet, by reforming our entitlement systems and downsizing the various government bureaucracies we've established over the years. Even more importantly, we need to stop propping up all the 'too big to fails' out there. When we're running deficits in the trillions, our government is telling us the cost of the bail outs alone could be $23 trillion (nearly twice our current gdp!) and countries like china are buying less and less of our debt I think it's obvious where this will lead if we do not reverse course.

TL;DR: Stop taxing so much, stop spending so much, stop subsidizing proven failures, establish an economy based on savings and production instead of debt and mindless consumption.

I agree that cutting spending is preferable to raising taxes. However, if you make 400k a year, what's another 10k off that to you? If you had a good investment portfolio with that kind of income, a small tax hike would be meaningless.

As for the rich being overtaxed, I like my state's tax plan. A flat 4.6% income tax. So a very wealthy person would be taxed ~42% of their income (I'm no tax expert). The irony is that the super rich (in my mind 500k a year or more) don't care. If you're that rich you probably are a good investor.

Personally,  I think capital gains taxes have more influence over the economy than income taxes. Lower capital gains taxes means more investment in America which means more jobs and economic activity.

But like I said, if you have to raise taxes, raising them a few percentage points on the super rich isn't a big deal (though it does have it's impact).

Ultimately I agree with you. Cut government without raising taxes, reform welfare programs, reform health care w/o adding to the deficit, and so forth.

[DownWithTheLeft]

Believe it or not I think that emotion has a place in politics. Besides the facts show that low taxes keeps the wealth concentrated at the top. Which is not very desirable for countries in this day and age.

Emotion has no place in politics unless it means you will slit your wrists

[Mint]

I agree that cutting spending is preferable to raising taxes. However, if you make 400k a year, what's another 10k off that to you? If you had a good investment portfolio with that kind of income, a small tax hike would be meaningless.

Well that all depends. If you're something like a lawyer or something like that, it's probably not felt as much although you still have to deal with tax hikes locally even now. If you're a business owner however any tax increase is going to hit you hard. Those people are already paying for the bulk of the tax system. And some groups like doctors take years to make any sort of return on, and pay comparatively less than other professionals.

My main problem though besides the principle of it (that is, that >33% of your income being taken from you is basically robbery) is that tax hikes rarely do anything to curb the deficit. What inevitably happens is that politicians treat it as a mandate to do even more spending. It's never enough for these people. If you want a classic example, look at CT (the state I go to college in). Until the 1990s they had no state income tax. Then the politicians told them they needed to do it to shore up the budget. Sure enough, their deficits are even worse than ever and now they have to contend with a high tax burden too.

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I'd prefer a very low tax, low service model comparable to what Texas has now or to some extent what New Hampshire has traditionally enjoyed. We shouldn't have local income tax at the very least, the government already takes enough at nearly all levels.

Although when I speak about the 'wealthy' I'm really talking about the professional class, which is to say the people that go onto graduate school. I'm not really thinking about the people making well over >$500k a year who probably have tax shelters and all sorts of other means to get around that. Although again, I don't think anyone should be forced to give up that much of their money... And having taxes that are both lower and more simplified than now would cut down on a lot of that behavior.

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I'm not sure it has more impact, but everything I've seen points to it slowing economic growth in the overall economy.

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At this point I don't even think this is optional. Unless maybe we went to 1930s style income brackets where the top earners were paying 70-90% of their income, but even if that was a 'workable' solution economically it would be totally unacceptable politically.

[War on Want]

Believe it or not I think that emotion has a place in politics. Besides the facts show that low taxes keeps the wealth concentrated at the top. Which is not very desirable for countries in this day and age.

Emotion has no place in politics unless it means you will slit your wrists

You are the one who supports the braindead hicks that shout at congressman during town hall meetings. That isn't emotional? The point I am trying to make is that politics is emotional. The government raising taxes or starting programs or doing the opposite causes huge emotional reactions. You are the one calling Obama a communist when he isn't even close to being one. That is an emotional reaction to politics.

[opebo]

If the rich are taxed too much guess who they get rid of to pay the tax and stay rich..........YOU.  And if they dont buy stuff that rich peoople buy, who gets laid off.........YOU.

Dude, they get their money in the first place from the labours of their serfs. What do you think, the money comes out their ass and they employ people purely out of the goodness of their hearts?

I can just imagine it now - I get my 1 mil./year from 50 peons labouring in my, oh lets say convenience stores.  Now, I have to pay 50% on the part above 200K instead of 30%.  Ok, lets close stores, fire lots of people, and bring my income down to 200K.  Yes, I really benefit from that.  Do you people ever think about whether your right-wing talking points make any actual sense?

I'll cut my expenses (peon surfs) just enough to make up the difference in income, then make the others work harder, not close stores to bring my income down.

Dude, if a convenience store exists where the peons within are not already working absolutely as hard as is possible, I'll eat my hat.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

If the rich are taxed too much guess who they get rid of to pay the tax and stay rich..........YOU.  And if they dont buy stuff that rich peoople buy, who gets laid off.........YOU.

Dude, they get their money in the first place from the labours of their serfs. What do you think, the money comes out their ass and they employ people purely out of the goodness of their hearts?

I can just imagine it now - I get my 1 mil./year from 50 peons labouring in my, oh lets say convenience stores.  Now, I have to pay 50% on the part above 200K instead of 30%.  Ok, lets close stores, fire lots of people, and bring my income down to 200K.  Yes, I really benefit from that.  Do you people ever think about whether your right-wing talking points make any actual sense?

I'll cut my expenses (peon surfs) just enough to make up the difference in income, then make the others work harder, not close stores to bring my income down.

Dude, if a convenience store exists where the peons within are not already working absolutely as hard as is possible, I'll eat my hat.

Come to Pittsburgh........would you like A1 sauce or Heinz 57 with that stetson

[opebo]

If the rich are taxed too much guess who they get rid of to pay the tax and stay rich..........YOU.  And if they dont buy stuff that rich peoople buy, who gets laid off.........YOU.

Dude, they get their money in the first place from the labours of their serfs. What do you think, the money comes out their ass and they employ people purely out of the goodness of their hearts?

I can just imagine it now - I get my 1 mil./year from 50 peons labouring in my, oh lets say convenience stores.  Now, I have to pay 50% on the part above 200K instead of 30%.  Ok, lets close stores, fire lots of people, and bring my income down to 200K.  Yes, I really benefit from that.  Do you people ever think about whether your right-wing talking points make any actual sense?

I'll cut my expenses (peon surfs) just enough to make up the difference in income, then make the others work harder, not close stores to bring my income down.

Dude, if a convenience store exists where the peons within are not already working absolutely as hard as is possible, I'll eat my hat.

Come to Pittsburgh........would you like A1 sauce or Heinz 57 with that stetson

I only wear fishing hats, but my point is simply that capitalist organizations already and always maximize profits by maximizing worker misery. 

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

If the rich are taxed too much guess who they get rid of to pay the tax and stay rich..........YOU.  And if they dont buy stuff that rich peoople buy, who gets laid off.........YOU.

Dude, they get their money in the first place from the labours of their serfs. What do you think, the money comes out their ass and they employ people purely out of the goodness of their hearts?

I can just imagine it now - I get my 1 mil./year from 50 peons labouring in my, oh lets say convenience stores.  Now, I have to pay 50% on the part above 200K instead of 30%.  Ok, lets close stores, fire lots of people, and bring my income down to 200K.  Yes, I really benefit from that.  Do you people ever think about whether your right-wing talking points make any actual sense?

I'll cut my expenses (peon surfs) just enough to make up the difference in income, then make the others work harder, not close stores to bring my income down.

Dude, if a convenience store exists where the peons within are not already working absolutely as hard as is possible, I'll eat my hat.

Come to Pittsburgh........would you like A1 sauce or Heinz 57 with that stetson

I only wear fishing hats, but my point is simply that capitalist organizations already and always maximize profits by maximizing worker misery. 

False.  Now in a Thai sweat shop I might agree........

[Jordan]

All companies are, are legal pyramid schemes

The person at the top and all his cronies get all the money, everyone else gets screwed

[Governor PiT]

We need to start taxing the hell out of those scumbags so the middle class can get some relief.