Our country operates as a partially socialist country would -- we have welfare, social security, and other programs that attempt to equalize different classes and for the most part these programs are a good thing (tm) even if there management is poor and the rules they establish cause alternate ill effects on society. Soviet Russia failed primarily because it didn't tap into its own natural resources and depended strongly on the west for food; there were social movements not related to the redistribution of wealth that upended the stability of the government. If you think that our progressive tax system is a redistribution of wealth you have another issue because those above the poverty line do not receive welfare.
I haven't really made my mind for or against the "welfare state" where we collectively help people who are demonstrably unable to do that themselves.
But when you're above poverty line, I find it unacceptable that progressive taxing effectively punishes you for making more effort to work/invest/etc than the next guy. If I rob a guy who makes 20% more than me in a year, am I right in doing that because it "lessens our class differences"? Progressive taxing is just robbery on a grand scale.
edit: someone said flat taxes are regressive, this is simply untrue. If you're taxed less when you get more income, that amounts to regression.
[ . . . } In fact, I could make a very good case that such spending makes these problems worse.
[ . . . ]
Now that i doubt . . I think we'd rather get the same tired story that we always get
Completely misdirecting such grand vagueities as 'responsibility' and blaming . . . blame blame blame
Its all the Guvment's fawlt
whereas our infrastructure fails and we cut taxes . . .
we cut taxes and believe a vicious dog eat dog reality is somehow more conducive to a civilized culture than balance
tired story . . . heard all too much . . . it pours out of the radio non-stop
and its wrong
The robber-baron's run amok in the 1800s DID NOT have any cultural advantage in terms of over-all civilization . . they contributed Industrial innovation and that is good . . . but it is doubful that that would NOT have taken place if they also had BALANCE in terms of worker's rights, government oversite, taxation and anti-monopoly laws . .
all of the progressive changes that have brought us out of that muck of Spencerian-social-darwinistic child labour, 20 hour day 7 day, no benefits, no rights, and environmental disaster after disaster are pretty much all the work of those "liberal" bad-guys, and many of them have come about through the non-profit organ of the people known as 'Government'
While all of you conservatives want us to regress into some deregulated Victorian age, I like to accept what gains we have made and think about how we arrived at this semi-advanced state of civilization . . . partly because we have decent governance and we all help out through paying taxes . . .
damn . . . and I only wanted to say one sentence!!
I've read somewhere that income taxes were introduced to the US during WWII to help with the war effort. I'm not sure if this is indeed true. But if true, it would negate many of the your Socialist type arguments pfflam. But I suppose prior to WWII people in the US used gravel roads to commute, with the US generally being a backwater colony with little technical prowess to showcase in its civilization and cities. See New York.
I've read somewhere that income taxes were introduced to the US during WWII to help with the war effort. I'm not sure if this is indeed true. But if true, it would negate many of the your Socialist type arguments pfflam. But I suppose prior to WWII people in the US used gravel roads to commute, with the US generally being a backwater colony with little technical prowess to showcase in its civilization and cities. See New York.
Not at all true
the many things of which I am talking about built incrementally against all sorts of reactionary ideologues and took many years to change . . . look at Civil Rights for instance
I am talking about a broad range of things not merely taxes
The word 'Liberal' has been painted in an ugly and undeserving light by a bunch of paid media pundits
and now you can't escape their idiotic drivel that seeks to use the easiest cliche
Coming into this thread so late... so many things to comment on...
Quote:
Originally posted by loopy
The richest people in the US now pay 20 cents on the dollar (after deductions, etc.), while the middle class pays 18 cents on the dollar (after deductions, etc.).
This statistic only hints at the real picture. When you take other factors into account, the current US tax system is regressive, not just merely approaching flatness.
Most tax-related statistics you see anywhere are derive from federal income tax records. But a great deal of wealth, especially of the "super rich", is completely off this radar screen. Those who have lots and lots of money have all sorts of ways to move money around so that it doesn't count as "income" and/or doesn't have anything to do with the US tax system, even when these people are US citizens.
As for the idea that flat equals fair -- I don't subscribe to that. Capitalism is a great system in many ways. It's certainly better than anything else that's been tried. But I also think it's a mistake to assume that all market-driven outcomes are fair, or that the distribution of wealth comes even close to a proportional representation based on relative talent, effort, and risk-taking.
It's not at all unusual, in fact, for the rich to get richer while losing money for those for whom they supposedly work:
Last year, Warnaco (Calvin Klein jeans, Fruit of the Loom bras) "lost $32 million after taxes and delivered a total return to its stockholders of minus 18.6 percent," Cassidy said. Nonetheless, chairman and CEO Linda Wachner's salary of $2.7 million was thought insufficient. Consequently, she was awarded a bonus of $6 million, a restricted stock grant of $6.5 million, and a package of options valued by Graef Crystal, an independent pay consultant, at $58.2 million. The losing performance-related grand total was $73.4 million--twenty-seven times her salary and well over twice the company's loss.
Even when performance isn't diametrically opposed to income like in the example above, the relationship is still often grossly distorted. Bill Gates has a net worth tens or hundreds of thousands of times greater than most of us. He doesn't work that much harder, isn't that much smarter, and doesn't contribute that much more to society than the average guy.
I would never want to try to flatten out all differences, or ever try to apply any rigid definition of "worth" to income or taxation. However, on the general principle that the higher you go in wealth and income, the greater to distortion in allocation of financial resources, I have no problem whatsoever with a progressive tax system, and in fact think that, as tough as "fairness" can be to define, only a truly progressive tax system can claim to approach an ideal of fairness.
I also think it's ludicrous to imagine higher taxes on the wealthy are going to stifle innovation or competitive drive. Is someone really going to work less hard at making $2,000,000,000 if they find out that it will be taxed at 30% instead of 20%?
Comments
Originally posted by billybobsky
Our country operates as a partially socialist country would -- we have welfare, social security, and other programs that attempt to equalize different classes and for the most part these programs are a good thing (tm) even if there management is poor and the rules they establish cause alternate ill effects on society. Soviet Russia failed primarily because it didn't tap into its own natural resources and depended strongly on the west for food; there were social movements not related to the redistribution of wealth that upended the stability of the government. If you think that our progressive tax system is a redistribution of wealth you have another issue because those above the poverty line do not receive welfare.
I haven't really made my mind for or against the "welfare state" where we collectively help people who are demonstrably unable to do that themselves.
But when you're above poverty line, I find it unacceptable that progressive taxing effectively punishes you for making more effort to work/invest/etc than the next guy. If I rob a guy who makes 20% more than me in a year, am I right in doing that because it "lessens our class differences"? Progressive taxing is just robbery on a grand scale.
edit: someone said flat taxes are regressive, this is simply untrue. If you're taxed less when you get more income, that amounts to regression.
edit: Flat taxes are called regressive because they are effectively regressive.
Originally posted by SDW2001
[ . . . } In fact, I could make a very good case that such spending makes these problems worse.
[ . . . ]
Now that i doubt . . I think we'd rather get the same tired story that we always get
Completely misdirecting such grand vagueities as 'responsibility' and blaming . . . blame blame blame
Its all the Guvment's fawlt
whereas our infrastructure fails and we cut taxes . . .
we cut taxes and believe a vicious dog eat dog reality is somehow more conducive to a civilized culture than balance
tired story . . . heard all too much . . . it pours out of the radio non-stop
and its wrong
The robber-baron's run amok in the 1800s DID NOT have any cultural advantage in terms of over-all civilization . . they contributed Industrial innovation and that is good . . . but it is doubful that that would NOT have taken place if they also had BALANCE in terms of worker's rights, government oversite, taxation and anti-monopoly laws . .
all of the progressive changes that have brought us out of that muck of Spencerian-social-darwinistic child labour, 20 hour day 7 day, no benefits, no rights, and environmental disaster after disaster are pretty much all the work of those "liberal" bad-guys, and many of them have come about through the non-profit organ of the people known as 'Government'
While all of you conservatives want us to regress into some deregulated Victorian age, I like to accept what gains we have made and think about how we arrived at this semi-advanced state of civilization . . . partly because we have decent governance and we all help out through paying taxes . . .
damn . . . and I only wanted to say one sentence!!
Originally posted by billybobsky
That's er ahem WWI.
LOL.
Then I guess pfflam wins.
But WWI is about right.
Also, there was an income tax in the 1860s.
Originally posted by Blue Shift
I've read somewhere that income taxes were introduced to the US during WWII to help with the war effort. I'm not sure if this is indeed true. But if true, it would negate many of the your Socialist type arguments pfflam. But I suppose prior to WWII people in the US used gravel roads to commute, with the US generally being a backwater colony with little technical prowess to showcase in its civilization and cities. See New York.
Not at all true
the many things of which I am talking about built incrementally against all sorts of reactionary ideologues and took many years to change . . . look at Civil Rights for instance
I am talking about a broad range of things not merely taxes
The word 'Liberal' has been painted in an ugly and undeserving light by a bunch of paid media pundits
and now you can't escape their idiotic drivel that seeks to use the easiest cliche
and one that is also usually fallacious
. . and sometimes, probably, even consciously so
Originally posted by loopy
The richest people in the US now pay 20 cents on the dollar (after deductions, etc.), while the middle class pays 18 cents on the dollar (after deductions, etc.).
This statistic only hints at the real picture. When you take other factors into account, the current US tax system is regressive, not just merely approaching flatness.
Most tax-related statistics you see anywhere are derive from federal income tax records. But a great deal of wealth, especially of the "super rich", is completely off this radar screen. Those who have lots and lots of money have all sorts of ways to move money around so that it doesn't count as "income" and/or doesn't have anything to do with the US tax system, even when these people are US citizens.
As for the idea that flat equals fair -- I don't subscribe to that. Capitalism is a great system in many ways. It's certainly better than anything else that's been tried. But I also think it's a mistake to assume that all market-driven outcomes are fair, or that the distribution of wealth comes even close to a proportional representation based on relative talent, effort, and risk-taking.
It's not at all unusual, in fact, for the rich to get richer while losing money for those for whom they supposedly work:
From OUT-OF-CONTROL CEO SALARIES: Should Taxpayers Subsidize Them?
Last year, Warnaco (Calvin Klein jeans, Fruit of the Loom bras) "lost $32 million after taxes and delivered a total return to its stockholders of minus 18.6 percent," Cassidy said. Nonetheless, chairman and CEO Linda Wachner's salary of $2.7 million was thought insufficient. Consequently, she was awarded a bonus of $6 million, a restricted stock grant of $6.5 million, and a package of options valued by Graef Crystal, an independent pay consultant, at $58.2 million. The losing performance-related grand total was $73.4 million--twenty-seven times her salary and well over twice the company's loss.
Even when performance isn't diametrically opposed to income like in the example above, the relationship is still often grossly distorted. Bill Gates has a net worth tens or hundreds of thousands of times greater than most of us. He doesn't work that much harder, isn't that much smarter, and doesn't contribute that much more to society than the average guy.
I would never want to try to flatten out all differences, or ever try to apply any rigid definition of "worth" to income or taxation. However, on the general principle that the higher you go in wealth and income, the greater to distortion in allocation of financial resources, I have no problem whatsoever with a progressive tax system, and in fact think that, as tough as "fairness" can be to define, only a truly progressive tax system can claim to approach an ideal of fairness.
I also think it's ludicrous to imagine higher taxes on the wealthy are going to stifle innovation or competitive drive. Is someone really going to work less hard at making $2,000,000,000 if they find out that it will be taxed at 30% instead of 20%?