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Federal Surplus and Our future: Raising tax for the rich


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2010 Nov 30, 1:09pm   12,597 views  58 comments

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Some people are utterly confused about the fact that some people who are preaching higher tax for the rich are motivated by the pure hatred for the rich.

It is actually not about the hatred toward rich. It doesn't involve emotion. It is about balancing the federal deficit. Because Republicans have instituted the tax cut; our social services, education system and highway system have been steadily shrinking. Our nation had the best education system, best highway system and social services. Because we had the best education system, we were able to forester the best and brightest in our country to contribute to our society. Now because of the deficit, our school is shrinking. Only the wealthy, that is 1%, can afford to give their children the best education. Our federal deficit is robbing the future and dreams from the children whose parents can't afford to give them private education.

And for those of you who believe the raising the tax for the rich would eliminate our jobs. Well, raising or lowering tax for the rich has no bearing on companies from hiring or laying off workers. The company's decision to hire workers has always been driven by the demand for increased production of goods and services. The companies will not hire, just because the spending (paying tax) is decreased.

And in order to increase the demand for the goods and services, the money must be allocated to someone who would most likely spend it to acquire goods and services. The rich can afford to save the money which will sit in the bank only contributing 1% to 2% to the economy. The middle to lower income earners can't afford to save it, so they will spend it to purchase the services and goods. The contribution of the money is 100% to the economy. While rich folks, regardless of tax, more than likely can afford not to change their spending habit, middle to lower income earners will change their spending habit significantly even with a minute fluctuation in their take home money. The rich has accumulated their wealth in the past 10 years. It is time to give a little. Taxing the rich has profound positive effect on our economy
as well as our federal budget.

So besides the historical facts, the logic is pretty simple. If we raise the tax for the rich and give that money to our government, the government can spend most of it on something more meaningful for our future and economy. The money that government spend has more profound effect on economy. It creates jobs to provide better government services, such as education, etc. Raising the tax for the middle to lower income earners will have a negative impact on our economy, as I mentioned, because it will have severe impact on the consumption. Less consumption by the majority of the population has more impact than by 1 to 2% of the population.

Lastly, we need to have best education system to compete with countries like China, Japan or India. As long as we maintain the technology edge over these countries, we can maintain such jobs here in US. Other wise, we will even lose those high skill jobs to these countries. It is time for us to save our country. Don't let Republicans help the rich at the cost of our nation and our future. We can't afford $700 billion hole in the federal budget by giving tax break to the 1 to 2% of the population. Our past generation has paid their fair share for our future. It is time our generation pay our fair share for the future and dreams of our children.

#politics

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1   Â¥   2010 Nov 30, 1:49pm  

the government can spend most of it on something more meaningful for our future and economy

Debatable. I agree that we need to close the budget gap -- it's stupid borrowing money from rich people when we can just tax them instead but Government at all levels is going to be spending $6.7T next year.

Divided by $100,000 per job, that's 67 million jobs. There's only 115 million households in the US so that's more than 1 well-paying government job for every two households.

So if it's not you it's one of your neighbors! WTF!

we need to have best education system to compete with countries like China, Japan or India

Dunno about that. There's no shortage of college grads for jobs now, is there?

2   Nobody   2010 Nov 30, 4:03pm  

Troy,

Give money to the government, they will spend it. That is meaningful. Giving money to the rich has not and will not add money to the economy as much as giving money to the middle to lower income earners. That is the point. And you have already pointed that out.

There maybe no shortage of college grads. So what? It's the quality I am talking about. I have a son. The public education system is just horrible. They have no money to spend on copies, text and study kits. Are you a parent? Then you know what I am talking about.

It was our education system that created INTERNET, semiconductor and found cure for some of the disease. It was our defense system that created GPS. Without these investments by the government, things we are taking for granted have never happened. Just because there are so many college grads, it is utterly useless without a meaningful contribution to the economy and our society.

That 1% of the population who are categorized as wealthy has accumulated wealth much faster than any other decade. If they are opposing the tax hike for the rich, I just gotta say, the greed has no boundary.

3   Huntington Moneyworth III, Esq   2010 Dec 1, 2:16am  

Back in my idealistic college days I hung out with a bunch of friends who lived in a commune. They belonged to a radical political party, something I'd never heard of before: The Libertarian Party. Ron Paul and the Silicon Valley tech boom made the ideology mainstream, but at the time no one in mainstream media covered these folks and the Internet was not even a word yet.

To my point: I took part in a wide ranging town hall like think tank meeting in the middle of the day with several hundreds of people who had nothing better to do in the middle of the day. We were broken into groups and each given a huge summarized copy of the Federal Budget. It spelled out in plain English how much money was collected in taxes and where the money went.

The folks at the meeting were pumped up. Young, Old, Liberals, Conservatives, radicals, moderates - everyone was ready to wack the budget and prove the other side wrong.

The conclusion however, surprised many. The vast bulk of the tax breaks and tax benefits went to one group: The Middle Class. To balance the budget, you needed to either grow tax receipts from this group or lessen benefits received by this group. In other words - political suicide.

Until this reality is addressed, our nation will have debt.

4   bob2356   2010 Dec 1, 2:19am  

shrekgrinch says

And since the upper 10% provide 70% of federal income tax revenues, it is totally stupid to screw with that. This is backed by actual history both recent and going back for like…uh, forever. New York raised income taxes on the rich and instead of getting the $4 billion in additional revenues, they saw a shortfall. Maryland and New Jersey also did similar things and saw the same result.

Back in the 50s, when the highest tax bracket was 91%, the top 10% only provided for 9% of federal income tax revenues. That means that the middle class carried the federal tax burden mostly. You want to go back to that?

You mean go back to when the middle class had most of the money, when ceo's made 40 times the average workers wage not 400, when incomes were a lot more equitably distributed. Which is why the top 10% only provided 9% of federal tax revenues? Yes that would certainly be a terrible thing to go back to. Why don't you post any articles on income distributions since the 50's. The rich have gotten a lot richer so they pay a higher percentage of the taxes.

5   EightBall   2010 Dec 1, 3:07am  

Nobody says

It was our education system that created INTERNET

I thought Al Gore invented the internet? Oh wait, most sane people know that was DARPA...not the education system...

Pumping more money into the screwed up public education system we have hasn't worked yet - perhaps we need to pay the kids to go to school? How much is enough? If they get an A it's $50? They can learn how to be politicians and union thugs (not union members...their leadership) and kick back 20% to the teachers for higher grades. The teachers can hire the bullies to break the knee caps of those that won't pay up. The bullies can band together and go on strike for more twinkies and flavored condoms.

6   Huntington Moneyworth III, Esq   2010 Dec 1, 3:23am  

EightBall says

Pumping more money into the screwed up public education system we have hasn’t worked yet - perhaps we need to pay the kids to go to school?

The exact same argument: Pumping more money into the military has not made us free or secure. The United States continues to be attacked, and Americans continue to die. Therefor we should either stop spending money on the military or get rid of it.

Not sure what Eightball thinks is a workable alternative to public education? Should we roll back the clock and send our young into textile factories in China? Or we could all just home-school all our kids, because nothing builds the fabric of society like loyalty to a religion over loyalty to the state. (And we know how much time working moms have on their hands). Then again, we could turn everything over to the capitalist system, and educate our young in private schools called Madrasses funded by the wealthy Saudis. Cuz we know the Christians are already tapped out with all the current private schools.

7   Â¥   2010 Dec 1, 3:47am  

EightBall says

Oh wait, most sane people know that was DARPA…not the education system…

Tell it to my CS 112 professor.

http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~lk/

semi-interesting trivia. Two guys in that class that usually sat behind me ended up founding Blizzard together.

8   EightBall   2010 Dec 1, 5:37am  

SoCal Renter says

Not sure what Eightball thinks is a workable alternative to public education?

I'm not saying do away with public education - I'm just saying that throwing money into a broken system isn't the answer. Money doesn't solve all problems.

SoCal Renter says

The exact same argument: Pumping more money into the military has not made us free or secure.

Eh, well, I can see it both ways - we certainly do a lot of dumb things with our money and a bloated military designed to fight the USSR is one of them. I don't think dumping the entire military is a smart move, though.

Troy says

Tell it to my CS 112 professor.

http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~lk/

Wow. Add him to the list of those claiming they invented the internet.

9   Â¥   2010 Dec 1, 10:06am  

EightBall says

Wow. Add him to the list of those claiming they invented the internet.

um, the first BBN switch for the ARPANET was sent to and installed at Boelter Hall at UCLA. SRI got the second. UCSB and Utah were the 3rd and 4th.

Dr Kleinrock did in fact write the definitive thesis on packet switching -- and may I say his Queueing Theory class was fucking awesome. I took it in 1991 -- at the peak of my mental powers, such as they were -- and for a brief moment I could see the beauty of math like never before -- Poisson arrivals and how random events could stack up into normal distributions, rigorous shit like that. One of those classes where now I just think, "damn I took that???"

10   Nobody   2010 Dec 1, 11:05am  

We can't even agree that investing into education could lead to the development of better technology by bickering over the petty little detail. There is no doubt that directly or indirectly our education system has been good to our economy and technology.

Shrekidiot, don't complicate the simple fact of balancing the deficit vs. what is good for our economy. It is not about our emotion or hatred. You need to get the facts straight. And read what I wrote. Also, when you claim that we had failure by increasing the tax, define the detail and fact. I care most about the logic and facts. I don't care about your logic which does not make sense to anyone here or me at all.

So are you saying don't tax the wealthy and keep our federal deficit increasing indefinitely? And we should just keep watching our country downside education system, highway, social service etc? That is sad you feel that way. I have a little bit of patriotism left in me, and I don't mind 4% tax increase.

Or you are writing just to argue? I am what Obama calls higher income earner. I don't mind our government taking mere 4% more from my pay check. My spending habit will not change as much. I may only save a little less each year. And when I retire, I can still retire comfortably.

I think it is problematic when poor is getting poorer and rich getting richer. I guess you don't see that either. I have paid my dues and feel I am entitled to my pay. But I am also appreciative of our government in letting me go to one of the best schools and enabled me to carry out interesting research. And my parents were poor. Without government funding, none of that would ever happened. Hey besides, the 4% increase is tax deductible. It is like donation. I reduced my donation after the donation is no longer tax deductible. So I am back to square one.

11   RayAmerica   2010 Dec 1, 11:28am  

Dear Mr. Nobody:

As a "higher income earner," here's your chance to be a Mr. Somebody. Go to this site and give until it hurts. You'll be helping enact that tax policy you favor (as a "higher income earner") voluntarily. Why wait for the government to raise taxes? Do it yourself to yourself:

http://patrick.net/?p=36616

12   Nobody   2010 Dec 1, 11:30am  

Ray,

Get real.

I should not react to a meaningless sarcasm. Let me know a way to delete my post.
This was a knee jerk reflex.

13   marcus   2010 Dec 1, 12:00pm  

shrekgrinch says

Kennedy had brains and lowered the top tax rate from 91% to 70%. There as an economic boom afterwards (although he didn’t live to see it).

So ? It seems like many republicans think if lowering taxes from way too high is good, then lowering them from too low is just as good. Even Laffer (see laffer curve) said there was on optimal level for taxes. In other words even he knew that lower taxes aren't always better.

shrekgrinch says

So much for ‘this isn’t about emotion this is about getting more revenue’, eh?

Admit it: This is all about class warfare, not what will actually bring in revenue to the treasury.

Wrong. The class warfare I see is selfish high income people not caring about deficits that hurt our economy and the future of our country if it puts more money in their pocket. If you are one of the high income people, congratulations, but then we know why you have such difficulty taking your emotion out of the equation. If you aren't, than why are you so easy to manipulate ?

I don't think that higher taxes for the rich solve everything. But I do think that deficits matter. And I think it is more than amazing that the right wing is close to succeeding in keeping the highest bracket at 35%, lower than it was in the 90s, and keeping a tax cut in place that was based on supposed surplusses as far as the eye can see.

Since then, a couple of unfunded wars later and record breaking deficits, and republicans want to argue that raising taxes on high income people to 39% is going to hurt investment. What a bunch of self interested liars. Yes there is emotion here, but it's not about nailing the rich, it's about not having this country destroyed by the rich.

14   EightBall   2010 Dec 1, 10:38pm  

Troy says

Dr Kleinrock did in fact write the definitive thesis on packet switching — and may I say his Queueing Theory class was fucking awesome. I took it in 1991 — at the peak of my mental powers, such as they were — and for a brief moment I could see the beauty of math like never before — Poisson arrivals and how random events could stack up into normal distributions, rigorous shit like that. One of those classes where now I just think, “damn I took that???”

Sounds like an interesting fellow. We need more Dr. Kleinrocks and fewer sociology majors. You were fortunate - I was stuck writing assembly language on a 390 to do screen I/O in '91 at one of these wonderful state-run institutions. I learned more writing a text-based multiuser internet game running off a professors workstation in some far distant university than I did from all but one or two professors.

Nobody says

We can’t even agree that investing into education could lead to the development of better technology by bickering over the petty little detail. There is no doubt that directly or indirectly our education system has been good to our economy and technology.

There is no doubt that investments in education yields huge benefits. It's the political games that go on that make me sour. Real science is hard enough without the politics. I have no problem with the private sector companies "paying back" to the academic establishments for these innovations either. I also think it makes a difference where the money is spent - just spending on education just to say we are spending on education is as stupid as spending money on the military just to say we will be more safe. K-12 has their own set of issues but the flood of "college graduates" has watered down higher ed significantly.

Nobody says

So are you saying don’t tax the wealthy and keep our federal deficit increasing indefinitely?

We are all circling around a dead or dying beast - the tax code is so ridiculous and we are just dickering about minor details. Real change will only happen when the current code is tossed and replaced with something not infested with special interests and social engineering.

15   Vicente   2010 Dec 1, 11:32pm  

I'd just like to this "tax handout" stuff tied to results.

The endpoint of the argument is that giving special tax privileges and cuts to the rich will result in more wealth via "trickle down" or jobs or something.

OK fine, so tie it directly. We cut taxes for P&G by 10% and if that doesn't result in 10% raises or 10% more jobs or SOMETHING concrete, we roll it back. Simple. Same for Richy Rich, you pocket the tax savings we will raise you to 90%. Morons who keep claiming trickle down works should have to SHOW ME THE MONEY.

It's funny how people who deride unemployment saying it leads to lazy people by requiring them not to pick up garbage on the roadside, will RAGE about requirements to tie their handouts to some actual work. Yeah I'll do something nice for you later I promise, I absolutely will not buy a Maserati instead of employing another 5 people.

16   Nobody   2010 Dec 2, 4:31am  

Vincent,

I will not hire or raise salary unless I have a demand for increased production of goods and services. The corporations make decision to hire, when they actually require some one to work and produce. Definitely not because they saved some tax. This is what Republicans' lie is based on. Less tax does not produce jobs. Less tax means less for the federal budget. Less federal budget means cuts, less service, less jobs, less research funds, less school funding etc.

I just want to say that I am not against reducing the corporate tax. Just raise the tax for high income earners whose wealth is sitting in the savings account without contributing much to the economy. If rich people are not going to spend it, take it from them and spend it.

My point is that federal surplus is not evil. It is necessary to keep our nation afloat. A good education system would create more highly skilled workers who can earn higher income. We must remember some corporations tend to locate their companies where the talent is, not overseas. Look at Silicon Valley. What was the average income in Silicon valley as opposed to the rest of the country? Tho it sure is expensive to live here. But that is another point.

I am spending over $2000 a month for my son. I am doing my part to invest in our future with my son. I regularly donate study materials to his school. But we can invest in our future as a country.

I knew the impending economic disaster 6 years ago. I tried to tell my friends and colleagues not to buy a house. Nobody listened. This time, I can feel that our country is taking a dive, and once again nobody is listening. Instead, people are arguing without offering any solution to our federal deficit.

I may not like Obama for his exorbitant spending of our tax to save evil corporations. But this time, I believe he is right on this issue.

17   Nobody   2010 Dec 2, 4:47am  

Oh, Vincent,

One more thing. We have had 10 years of reduced tax, so where is the job? When Clinton was our president, he increased the tax for the rich. After that, every year during his administration we had our unemployment rate decreased to 4% at the end of his administration. We had federal surplus. And Republicans squandered all of them away.....

18   artistsoul   2010 Dec 2, 6:18am  

Making friends and influencing people as always, eh? Quite an impressive amount of retorts.

19   RayAmerica   2010 Dec 2, 7:52am  

Nobody says

Instead, people are arguing without offering any solution to our federal deficit.

Question: our "official" debt is approaching the total amount of GDP. Our unfunded liabilities are estimated by GAO Comtroller General Walker to be over $60 trillion. Revised estimates are running as high as $100 trillion. How exactly do you think the debt will be paid off by "raising tax for the rich?"

20   Clarence 13X   2010 Dec 2, 8:07am  

Troy says

the government can spend most of it on something more meaningful for our future and economy
Debatable. I agree that we need to close the budget gap — it’s stupid borrowing money from rich people when we can just tax them instead but Government at all levels is going to be spending $6.7T next year.
Divided by $100,000 per job, that’s 67 million jobs. There’s only 115 million households in the US so that’s more than 1 well-paying government job for every two households.
So if it’s not you it’s one of your neighbors! WTF!
we need to have best education system to compete with countries like China, Japan or India
Dunno about that. There’s no shortage of college grads for jobs now, is there?

We must first reform socia security, medicare, and the military budgets before counting on the government to spend on something more meaningful. The debt commission is right about all of those programs needing cutbacks, however, the outrage of the people will prevent anything from happening.

The politicians will be too afraid to do anything daring to get our country back on track....

1. Look at what happened to Adrian Fenty when he reformed education programs in Washington. The TEACHERS UNIONS destroyed his career...although most agree what he did was right for the children.

2. Look at Sarah Palin's response to Pennsylvania's going away from offering children cupcakes, cookies to more healthy options. In early November, 2010, Sarah Palin brought 200 cookies to a Christian school in Pennsylvania where she also brought another speech targeted in part at Michelle Obama's fight against childhood obesity.

Although each of these programs is positive in every way....every step of the way there will be some LIBERAL or member of the PARTY OF NO antagonizing the public, swaying public opinion negatively.

21   Vicente   2010 Dec 2, 8:55am  

Oh god the stock market MIGHT hiccup, oh god oh GOD OH GOD NOOOOO!!!!!

Meh.

That's always the specter raised by 3-year-olds & Wall Street to get their way.
Like ummm an "uuurban" in the White House crashed it didn't it? Oh wait, no that
didn't happen as it turns out. Or any number of other times I've read this line of
reasoning "if healthcare or whatever passes, it'll be like 1929 or 1987 or...."
and it just didn't happen.

22   Nobody   2010 Dec 2, 10:24am  

Shrekidiot,

Obviously, you are confusing the arrogance to being willing to help our nation at the time of need. You are the prime example of greed that made our economy gone awry.

"I dunno about you all, but I enjoy a high capital-labor ratio. Because when you have that, you have (a) more job opportunies (b) more job security and (c) more compensation. And since high capital-labor ratios are causes when there is a lot more capital competing against each other for the pool of workers"

No that is not true. It is pretty clear that Macro-economy is not your forte. You are ignoring the last 10 years of lower tax and flooding the market with cash by the Feds have created more unemployment and job instability. I have written this over and over again, but I will do it again. When there is demand for increased production of goods and services, you will see more jobs and more compensation. You need to create more demands by what? Giving money to the rich? Give me a break. It didn't work. Now our education system is shrinking etc. Time to change the strategy. Don't be an idiot to stick to the failed policy.

I don't care if it passes the smell test of twisted degenerative nostril of greed. You can hang with the scumbag Republicans. What you are saying barely makes any logic.

Rayamerica,

Did I mention anything about national debt? I thought i was talking about Federal budget.

23   RayAmerica   2010 Dec 2, 11:09am  

Nobody says

I don’t care if it passes the smell test of twisted degenerative nostril of greed. You can hang with the scumbag Republicans.

Were you able to take the time to visit that site designed for Liberals in which they can make volunatary contributions to the government? Just wondering ....

24   marcus   2010 Dec 2, 1:11pm  

shrekgrinch says

Thank your for proving that “that some people who are preaching higher tax for the rich are motivated by the pure hatred for the rich.”

I love the rich actually. But the ones I hold in the very highest esteem are ones like Warren Buffet, who say that living in this country which gave him such great opportunities, makes him feel obliged to give back. He feels that his taxes should be higher, and he feels in general that high income earners taxes are too low.

And I will repeat for you, I don't advocate punitive taxes that are too high - just reasonable progressive rates. Keeping taxes on high income earners as low as they are, when we have the deficits we have now is simply immoral as far as I'm concerned. It's criminal. Everyone says it adds 700 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years. Your justification for rates being so low is, "it's their money." What kind of argument is that ? Are you saying taxes should be zero ?

MY belief is that spending is also too high. But logically the best way to get spending down is to have tax rates cover all spending. That is, we should have a balanced budget. Most of the people in government are in the highest brackets. So what would happen if taxes equaled spending is that politicians would be forced to negotiate the tough spending decisions. IT's not just the pressure of their own personal finances, but also the pressure from their rich powerful benefactors.

You know I'm right.

25   artistsoul   2010 Dec 2, 1:35pm  

Well said Marcus.

Of course he knows you're right.

26   Â¥   2010 Dec 2, 1:55pm  

And actually I don't have any problem with raising taxes on everyone across the board, since I believe all taxes come out of rents and land prices in the end.

If we doubled everyone's tax burden, nothing would change, other than rents and home values would drop by half or so.

Is this not obvious?

27   artistsoul   2010 Dec 2, 2:15pm  

We do, in fact, need to raise taxes across the board, with a higher % due on the wealthy (no undue burden, just enough so the wealthy feel it as well as the middle class ---> the lower class doesn't pay anyway).

I'm not advocating DOUBLING anyone's burden....just taxing enough to at least cover spending AND possibly create a small surplus. Perhaps if we DOUBLED taxes, rents and property values would tank. Europeans have higher tax rates than we do and yet their real estate is quite expensive per sq ft. They tend to hold onto property within families and live in situations where multi-generations share the home. They have to because their prices are like California's :)

28   Nobody   2010 Dec 2, 11:11pm  

Troy,

Sure. But why take away the purchasing power from everyone right now?

It maybe true that we have to raise the taxes across the board eventually. My concern is that it can deflate the demands for domestic consumption by doing so. My position is to first raise the tax for the wealthy, so it has less impact on domestic consumption of goods and services. So it won't effect our jobs. When our federal budge is less into negative, we should begin to see more jobs. With so much capital in the market, our salary or compensation should also improve. At that point, we can increase the tax across the board. I am not sure how else we can start balancing our federal deficit without negatively impacting the majority. But if anyone else has a good idea, I'd like to know.

The fact that 10% of population provide 70% of the federal income tax revenue can also mean the 10% of the population is earning majority of the entire income in US. That sounds pretty lopsided. I understand wealthy worked hard for their money. But concentration of cash to a small group of people will not add to our economy. The money is worth more to the economy, when it is used to purchase goods and services. This is the point I am making as well as many other economists.

Balancing a federal budget should be done without hatred for the wealthy. You can call it class warfare. I just call it simple economic act of balancing the federal budget. It is unconscionable for wealthy to refuse the higher tax when the tax was used to give us the opportunity that we enjoy so much. Our past generation has paid their dues for us, I believe it is time for us to pay ours for our future and our children.

29   bob2356   2010 Dec 3, 3:44am  

artistsoul says

Europeans have higher tax rates than we do and yet their real estate is quite expensive per sq ft. They tend to hold onto property within families and live in situations where multi-generations share the home. They have to because their prices are like California’s :)

Some countries do, some countries don't. "Europe" isn't monolithic.

30   artistsoul   2010 Dec 3, 4:00am  

Ok...England, France and Germany have higher tax rates AND have expensive real estate. I suspect others as well. My point was only that it is possible to have high taxes and maintain expensive real estate values.

If we DOUBLED taxes, as Troy points out....well, yes. Something would have to give. People need to eat. Prices of housing would have to fall.

Had America not overspent so drastically, perhaps we would not have had to consider raising taxes.

31   artistsoul   2010 Dec 3, 7:00am  

Did it ever occur to Shrek that our deficit has exploded in recent years due in large part to two wars ushered in by a Republican president as well as by massive bailouts of capitalist Wall Street banks and corporations that were coined, PRE Obama, too big to fail.

I agree we have spending issues. Both spending will need to be cut and taxes increased to restore financial order. I saw no evidence on this thread of envy and spite for the wealthy. Do you not think it is possible for a "wealthy" person to support tax hikes? Do you not think it is possible for a "wealthy" person to appreciate that while their education, contributions and hard work had some part in their fortune that both luck and opportunity often play just as large a part? Do you not think it possible for a "wealthy" person to care about the financial health of their government and the well being of their fellow citizens?

Where is that ignore button? BTW, maybe Patrick will post a list of those ignored so you can get the confirmation you sought earlier.

32   Nobody   2010 Dec 3, 7:43am  

Shrekidiot,

Your ignorance of macro-economy and lack of consideration for our future is really amazing. By twisting posters' comment to delude yourself of your claim is self serving.

It is funny how you think spending cut can cure our federal deficit. It has been interesting to see the other side of story. But your lack of knowledge really disappoints me and makes these threads very superficial and meaningless. That is why you are not getting response. Did you learn anything? I have laid out all the logic of why we need to balance our federal deficit. And the way to start is by taxing the rich.

I feel sorry that you have to come here and rant that you are victimized, just because you are rich. Taxation is not getting screwed in the ass. But some of our tax is used on more meaningful cause. You may not have gotten the education, but more people getting educated is better for our economy. But you probably don't see that.

In any case, it has been interesting. Shrekgreed. Maybe some day you may understand what Artistsoul is saying. Maybe not.

33   Clarence 13X   2010 Dec 3, 9:01am  

marcus says

shrekgrinch says


Thank your for proving that “that some people who are preaching higher tax for the rich are motivated by the pure hatred for the rich.”

I love the rich actually. But the ones I hold in the very highest esteem are ones like Warren Buffet, who say that living in this country which gave him such great opportunities, makes him feel obliged to give back. He feels that his taxes should be higher, and he feels in general that high income earners taxes are too low.
And I will repeat for you, I don’t advocate punitive taxes that are too high - just reasonable progressive rates. Keeping taxes on high income earners as low as they are, when we have the deficits we have now is simply immoral as far as I’m concerned. It’s criminal. Everyone says it adds 700 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years. Your justification for rates being so low is, “it’s their money.” What kind of argument is that ? Are you saying taxes should be zero ?
MY belief is that spending is also too high. But logically the best way to get spending down is to have tax rates cover all spending. That is, we should have a balanced budget. Most of the people in government are in the highest brackets. So what would happen if taxes equaled spending is that politicians would be forced to negotiate the tough spending decisions. IT’s not just the pressure of their own personal finances, but also the pressure from their rich powerful benefactors.
You know I’m right.

DO you also believe that both DEMS and REPs are afraid of losing office so they sit on their thumbs and do nothing? The Debt Commission put forth reasonable accommodations and each party is afraid to support it based upon old people not voting because they would lose social security, medicare.

34   Clarence 13X   2010 Dec 3, 9:14am  

You both provide a PRIME example of our country's two party system: RICH vs. POOR.shrekgrinch says

Nobody says
But concentration of cash to a small group of people will not add to our economy. The money is worth more to the economy, when it is used to purchase goods and services.
Complete Keynesian bullshit promoted by the economically illiterate and/or those with such an extreme liberal world view that all true facts that threaten said view have to be automatically denied.
Sorry if I am being openly insulting now. But the facts are facts.

@Shrek

Nobody is actually right in his statements that providing tax breaks to the rich does nothing to stimulate the economy. There have been many debt studies prior to the debt commission which have proven that tax breaks for the rich only further strengthen their portfolios and investments.

35   marcus   2010 Dec 3, 9:27am  

shrekgrinch says

You can’t. Familiarize yourself with Hauser’s Law and get back to me. Until you do, I would recommend you refrain from demonstrating further ignorance on this topic.

Gosh. I guess impressing me with your amazing intellect and even more impressive ego is a substitute for considering my very simple easy to understand logic. Unlike me, you are backing your way in to justifying your opinion with nonsense.

Here again. What we need is a real "pay go," that is taxes that are as close to what we are spending as possible. Again (and I apologize that I don't need to cite any academic theories - only simple logic - just because it's at a level that a child would know it to be true true, doesn't make it false): The legislators and the powers that influence the legislators are virtually all in the highest tax brackets. So, the way that you get them to negotiate and make the grown up decisions on spending is to actually pay our bills with reasonably progressive taxes at a rate that covers our spending.

This would not be difficult. One way would be to have the progressive steps determined, but the actually rates for each step would change each year, depending on the previous years spending. We would need it well audited (the government) to prevent games being played (by legislators) and cheating, such as figuring out creative ways to borrow rather than pay. Obviously big investment type expenditures would still be amortized over time.

We have proven that deficit spending does not force the government to reduce spending. It's as if the rich think "give me the money, and force the debt higher until government is forced to spend responsibly." Every informed person knows this doesn't work. That is, it hasn't worked. Talk about history !!! What if high income earners knew that this reasoning will lead to total disaster. Would they they care ?

Shreks response is going to be more designed to obfuscate and show how intelligent he thinks he is, than to clearly refute this simple
solution.

36   tatupu70   2010 Dec 3, 10:37am  

shrekgrinch says

Sorry if I am being openly insulting now. But the facts are facts

Obviously you don't understand what the definition of fact is. Get back to me when you figure it out.

37   Â¥   2010 Dec 3, 10:43am  

There's really no reason this economy has to be so volatile, like a crack baby on more crack.

There was no great wealth-destruction event of 2007, what happened was processes that could not continue forever failed as they were going to.

The primary systemic risk was speculative feedback of over-investment in land values and housing in general. Show me a f---ed up modern economy, and I'll show a land market that got WAAY out of control.

Land economics is the unseen gash in the hull of our ship. Without eliminating the rentierism and redirecting rents from skimmers back to productive or prospectively productive enterprise, we will continue this drunken lurching of the business cycle.

WTF were we thinking, 1999-2006: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CMDEBT

The field of economics has been compromised by rentiers and their money for 100+ years now. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/janusg/coe/cofe00.htm

The media and public policy environment has been compromised by the monied right since the Powell Memo of the early 1970s. http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=9606

I just don't see how it's not all downhill from here. The Republicans can pump out their "millionaires are the job-creators -- we can't raise their income taxes 10%" propaganda and not be laughed out of town, even though this is the same stupid thing they were saying in 1993. http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/08/10/1993-quotes

Having said all that, I don't have the answers. I suspect it's in our best interest to continue offshoring production to Chindia. If they want to work for $2/hr, fine, let them make our shit.

We need to focus on cleaning house here at home. Purging the system of all the skimmers. And there are MILLIONs of them, most of them making millions a year in economic rents, too, or close.

38   Clarence 13X   2010 Dec 3, 2:33pm  

Troy says

We need to focus on cleaning house here at home. Purging the system of all the skimmers. And there are MILLIONs of them, most of them making millions a year in economic rents, too, or close.

Where will our middle class jobs come from?

39   Nobody   2010 Dec 5, 2:33pm  

Troy,

You are right. Republicans' lie of "reward the rich, so we have more jobs" just does not make economical logic at all. I am not going to hire workers based on how much money I saved. I hire when I need to increase my production or output of goods and services. If I have more money, I will simply keep it in the bank as a reserve. Why should I add capital when I don't need to increase my production or output? So the money will just sit in the bank adding only 1 to 2 % to the economy.

So how do we stimulate the demand for goods and services? Do you think giving 4% tax cut to the 2% of the population will stimulate the demand? Upside of taxing 4% more to the 2% would mean less federal deficit.

It is unfortunate that the congress has given tax cuts to everyone. We had the same policy for the last 10 years, and it got us into this mess. FED is dumping dollars into the market reducing the value of our savings. It will hurt anyone who has cash. If it wasn't for Chinese, our dollar would have taken more painful hit. Could you imagine $10 for a gallon of gasoline?

Now we extend the tax cuts for everyone, prepare for the worst to come. Having cash reserve will not save you, cause the inflation is going to wipe out the value of dollar. Housing market crush was easy to predict. I knew selling all of my real estate assets was the way to protect the assets. I hope that 2 years are not going to be enough to cause massive problem.

40   Done!   2010 Dec 6, 9:06am  

"Some people are utterly confused about the fact that some people who are preaching higher tax for the rich are motivated by the pure hatred for the rich.

It is actually not about the hatred toward rich. It doesn’t involve emotion. It is about balancing the federal deficit."

Sure it is Cupcake!

You can't screw the middle class then Rape them, by passing legislation that puts them in a 1400 a month premiums. At a time when Banks wont LOAN over 60% of the population a $1400 a month mortgage, and for good GOD DAMN reason, $1400 is a lot of Phucking money, I MEAN A REALLY LOT OF MONEY it's a 300K house(Great Job Clintons!!!). Is nobody outraged by that prospect?

ALL Americans are for Taxing the rich more, don't kid your self. The problem is you can't say your trying to Tax the Rich when it's the Middle class that gets the Shaft in the AM after all of these wee hour Congressional deals that keeps putting the Middle class on the hook. And further Scott free the Rich gets.

You Democrats aren't fooling ANYONE, not even the idiots you pulled from behind their Computer monitors to Vote for Bozo Obama.

Saddest song

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