Super-tax the super-rich: an idea whose time has come. Again.
Posted on January 21, 2012Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest men in the world, is famous for saying that his tax rate (17.7%) is lower than his secretary’s (30%).* Mr. Buffett makes a valid point. Right now, multi-multi-millionaires in the USA are paying their lowest tax rates since the Great Depression. Fiscal conservatives insist that lower taxes spur job growth and stimulate the economy. They are only partly right. As I will show here, lowering taxes can improve the economy, but only if you lower taxes on the middle class. Not the very rich.
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Super Tax The Super Rich. An Idea Whose Time Has Come. Again.
By marquismark Follow Thu, 1 Mar 2012, 9:09pm 8,056 views 88 comments
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You don't KNOW that I am consumed with envy. You don't even know me, what I look like, what I think, how I feel, nothing.
Do you feel that, in order to argue, you have to assign me a motive?
I won't questions your motives - because I don't know you - only yourapparent judgement.
I believe your argument about government waste is a tired one. Sure there's waste. I've worked at private companies where there was millions in waste (equipment and offices that were never utilized, bad hires, etc). In fact, I have a bunch of tomatoes I bought at Costco that I never got around to eating that are now rotting in my fridge. Waste is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid completely.
Does that mean, Mitt Romney should pay 13.9% while I pay 30%?
I don't know know, but I suspect you are someone who views himself as patriotic for not paying taxes. If so, you aren't. Patriots pay taxes. They support our country to the best of their ability. Plenty of baby boomers got their educations which allowed them to make good livings and now want to cut taxes and screw the next generation. They use government waste as an excuse. Yes, there's waste and I'm all in favor of getting rid of as much as possible, but to say that because there is waste we should not pay taxes is absurd.
When Clinton was president the rich paid a little more and the government had money for schools, roads, etc. Then Bush came in and spent all that surplus on unfunded wars (talk about waste) and tax breaks for people that didn't need them and didn't create jobs. It's called subtraction and it's why we're in such a mess.
As they say, if you hate taxes and government, you're free to move to Somalia.
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Dear Abe,
I honestly would like you to consider this: Who makes the rules? The wealthy? The middle? The poor? You know as well as I do that the wealthy make the rules. There are 47,000 registered lobbyists and the VAST majority lobby on behalf of wealthy people and their interests. So politicians (democratic and Republican) spend an inordinate amount of time with wealthy people and, naturally, over time, they begin to adopt some of their beliefs. How much time do politicians spend with middle income and poor people, besides photo ops?
Now, it's only natural that wealthy people see things from their own point of view, but because they back politicians campaigns, their point of view carries and inordinate amount of weight.
Imagine if POOR people made the rules...I guarantee the laws would be different. The minimum wage would be much higher, worker protections would be stronger, etc. It's only natural. Those are the things poor people care about.
So, to your point about whose money it is: While the rich people are in POSSESSION of more wealth, I submit that the majority of that wealth was obtained from bending the rules to their favor at the expense of everyone else.
Case in point: The Iraq war. Wealthy people at conservative think tanks lobbied for that war, got no bid contracts to service that war and future US taxpayers ended up being soaked for 1 trillion dollars + interest. Who benefited at future taxpayer expense? The oil companies who keep their supply lines open thanks to a taxpayer funded foreign policy, Halliburton, KBR, etc. Who lost? Mostly middle income and poor kids with no other option but to enter the military, our economy and our standing in the world.
So, I submit that the "wealth" which you state is "theirs" isn't. It was only made possible by the fact that they made the rules to benefit themselves and lobbied the right people.
That's why I feel that taxing Mitt Romney at half the rate I'm paying is unfair. No matter how you slice it, it is simply indefensible.
I'm really trying to be nice to you, Abe. I'm spending time gently trying to illustrate my point. I would like you to surprise me (and everyone else) and reply with some illustrations, charts, etc to support your points. But the "liberal" labeling thing you do is really not changing anyone's mind here.
C'mon. Challenge yourself. Let's discuss Really.
Respectfully,
MM
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To Thomas Wong: Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be using the "double tax" argument to defend a lower tax rate for capital gains. The Supreme Court ruled a long time ago (in the 20s, I think) that capital gains, like labor, are income. It is not double taxation because the money is NEW income (in other words it is made from money which was already capital). Your argument implies that the super wealthy shouldn't have to pay more than 15% because first they worked at McDonald's to make that money and THEN they invested it and got rich. That might fly for the first time they took their McDonald's paycheck to ETrade and invested it, but what about the subsequent 6,000 times they took that profit and invested it? And, since the vast majority of super rich haven't "worked" in a long time it is only logical to conclude that their money is the only thing that works for them. Many of the super wealthy either inherited, made their money long ago, or manage hedge funds. In other words they never worked for it or haven't worked for it for a long time. Capital gains are their only business. In short, capital gains are taxes on income derived from capital, as opposed to income derived from labor. Both capital gains taxes and income taxes should be taxed at the same rate. As far as your taking a risk argument goes, I could agree with you on someone staring a small business being given tax breaks. Free enterprise is a great system when it is managed (and taxed) fairly, but most of the super rich are not starting small businesses. They are people like the children of Sam Walton who continue to make billions a year of the Walmart stock they inherited from their father and are hardly taking risks. They pay 15% while their $8/hour "associates," who actually do the labor which allows them to make the billions are taxed at full fare. Call me whatever you want, but that's just not right. Nor is it necessary. Nor does it create job. Nor does it spur innovation. The last 50 years have clearly demonstrated that, no matter what Fox News says.
To Honest Abe: I don't even know how to answer you since it appears to me that you really didn't make any argument I could respond to. It seems to me you just rattled off a series of pejoratives designed to ignore any opinion that got in the way of your own. Again, you don't know me, but, if it makes you feel on firmer ground, please feel free to consider me a liberal, granola-eating, PBS watching, pottery-making, gay activist who wants the terrorists to win (none of which is true by the way, although I do like granola in the morning).
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Chico, CA
Money gotten by speculation and manipulation (as most of the what the rich get is) should be taxed at 1950s rates to discourage them. Make these rich bums do some real work for a living and really earn money for a change... set em up with waiter, trucker, construction worker, teacher jobs.
The rich are but parasites who live off the backs of the real workers, and yet somehow in this bizzaro world we live in, they walk around as heros because they have learned the tricks of gaming the system.
They wouldn't have a penny if they weren't skimming it from the workers. Let all the workers stop working for one month and see what happens to the rich...
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I would love it if conservative went back to meaning that we pay our bills, rather than meaning (supposedly) that we swear to selfishly not raise taxes from their lowest levels in 50 years, based on some transparent bullshit rationalization.
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I like the idea of the rich having to pay a large tax whenever the U.S. is engaged in military deployment anywhere in the world. I think if that was the law, we'd be at peace 99% of the time.
New Law: Anytime a single soldier or robot (including drones) is deployed anywhere for any time, that year the marginal tax rate is 95% for any income including capital gains over $1 million.
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Abe, You have absolutely nothing to add to any discourse. I have asked you repeatedly to give me examples, detail your logic (if there is any) and you never can. Just a series of dumb, over-the-top, unsupported rants. You, my friend, are being played by Fox News (oxymoron if ever there was one) and its wealthy masters and they are laughing at you and they screw you up your red, white and blue butt. I just feel sorry for you.
Anyway, this will be the last time I ever hear from you because your are now on ignore.
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wthrfrk80 says
Is his still yapping even after I put him ignore? He's like a turd that just won't flush...
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wthrfrk80 says
If AM talk radio is playing in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
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Honest Abe says
Talk about a robot programmed by Newscorp. Class-warfare? Really?
Warren Buffett: ""There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
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Honest Abe says
Because if we actually pay our bills, rather than borrowing to pay them, **we will be forced to live within our means.
This is common sense that even you should understand Abe.
By **We I mean the wealthy congresspeople and those wealthy folks who influence their decisions. If they had to pay very progressive rates on their high incomes, then the wasteful spending on corporate welfare, military industrial complex, and rich lobbyists writing legislation would end.
They won't cut their own throats. But because of everyone's greed, they will gladly spend future generations money, or destroy this country in the long term for their myopic self interest.
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TPB says
The military and old people. Try running for office on a platform of cutting military spending and social security and see what it's like to be Ron Paul.
To put it bluntly, Americans are too stupid to balance the budget. They will politically assassinate anyone who tries.
Again.......the PEOPLE are the problem, not the politicians.
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I would really like people to watch this. It is Bruce Bartlett, one of the key architects of the Reagan economic policy discussing with Bill Moyers the tax structure. It is devoid of hype, name calling and deals only in the rational. It is a fascinating, easy to digest, 25 minutes.
If Honest Abe and those who share his opinion will kindly watch this, I promise I will reciprocate by watching (with an open mind) any link you care to say send me of similar length. You can quiz me to make sure I watched it and I will do the same for you.
Then let's have a DIALOGUE. Is that still possible?
Ithttp://billmoyers.com/segment/bruce-bartlett-on-where-the-right-went-wrong/
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The rich will not put up with any tax increases. They'd rather see the states burst into flames and descend into cannibal anarchy. The Koch brothers can simply hire starving people with rations of meat and bread to protect their assets, expatriate their revenues to tax havens and enjoy shooting the survivors in helicopter hunting tours.
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By the way, here is the link:
http://billmoyers.com/segment/bruce-bartlett-on-where-the-right-went-wrong/
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Aptos, CA
thomas.wong1986 says
Thomas this sounds nice and it gets repeated all the time, but it doesn't actually work that way. The reason is new job creating businesses will consume that $1M dollars in expenses. The investors will get a tax break on their investment and hence, over the short run they will pay almost no tax on the $1M.
Today most investors want to sink their money into financial gambling. Most of those schemes focus on clever ways to shift costs to the tax payers, and strip assets, while calling them profits. These people care passionately about the tax rate for two reasons.
First they don't want to end up picking up the costs they have worked so hard to shove on to you the tax payer. Second, they don't have much in legitimate expenses to offset against their "profits".
Raising the tax rate would actually push investors from asset stripping to legitimate business investing, and help the economy.
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Big Business crushes the entrepreneurial spirit just as much as Big Government does.
The fight is not between "Socialists" and "Capitalists." Quit falling for that particular "us vs. them" trap.
The real fight is between the Crony Capitalists (Mega-Corporations and other special interests that own our Big Government) and the rest of us who are totally skrewed by this unholy alliance.
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Corning, NY
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Oh no. Abe is using the Chewbacca Defense!
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Honest Abe says
Flushing turds is a sexual slur? I really don't want to know what goes on behind your bedroom door.
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Honest Abe says
I might as well do digs. You have never in all the years I've read Patrick.net actually offered any type of suggestions how things could be better. You have only one trick, government is bad. But no suggestion whatsoever what would be good. Not that you ever answer other than to spew anti government am radio regurgitations, but what is your vision of how society should function?