For years now we have let the left frame the narrative that the rich in this country don’t pay their fair share. Even our President has joined in this effort to demonize the very folks who are the engine of our economy, the small business owners.
“The revenue we’re talking about isn’t coming out of the pockets of middle-class families that are struggling — it’s coming out of folks who are doing extraordinarily well and who are enjoying the lowest tax rates since before I was born. If you’re a — if you are a wealthy CEO or a … hedge fund manager in America right now, your taxes are lower than they have ever been. They’re lower than they’ve been since the 1950s.” – President Obama, June 29, 2011.
So a wealthy CEO or a hedge fund manager are making too much money and not paying enough.
Really?
For the honest answer to that question, let us turn to an organization that isn’t always very friendly to the United States, even though it was formed, in part by the US.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental economic organization in which the 30 member countries discuss, develop and analyze economic and social policy. While all of the member countries are considered to be economically advanced and collectively produce two-thirds of the world’s goods and services, membership is limited only by a country’s commitment to a market economy and a pluralistic democracy.
The OECD was actually born to replace the OEEC, or the Organization for European Economic Cooperation which itself was created to administer the Marshall Plan. In 1961 the OECD was formed to takeover from the OEEC, with the emphasis being to develop strong economies in its member countries.
In a 2008 study released by the OECD, it found that America had the most progressive income tax system in the industrialized world. By looking at the richest 10% in each country, they found that America has the greatest share of personal and payroll taxes combined than in any other country in the world, for the richest 10%. In the US, the richest 10% pay a whopping 45.1% of their income in taxes; more than every other industrialized country in the world.
The next step is to see how much of the market income is earned by that top 10%. In America, they earn 33.5% of the market share of income. When you take those two figures and find the ratio of taxes to income, a surprising statistic pops out. Those evil rich people in America pay more in taxes in relation to their income than any other country, also.
No other country places that much of a burden on their top income earners, yet to hear the left – and our President – tell it, those evil rich people just need to turn over more of their income because it is only fair.
How dare we let the left frame the debate like this. We are not suffering from an income problem in this country; we are suffering from a SPENDING problem. But Obama still wants to increase taxes on small business owners, who are in many cases among the top 10% of income earners in America. This of course will only worsen the situation economically here in the US, for if the small business owners are afraid that more of their private property will be confiscated, then our economy will continue to drag along on the bottom.
Thomas Jefferson said it best –
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21128.pdf
In 1848, Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto which advocated for a progressive taxation, placing higher, and oppressive, taxation on the wealthier of the state. By 1913, Wilson had put that philosophy in place. But Wilson was also a class warrior, who believed that academia was by far the most intelligent of the nation and therefore in a better position to determine was was best for those who were not.
Along comes FDR who took the class warfare philosophy to new heights. And while he instituted extremely high tax rates for the wealthy, he also stood by, quietly, while his Democrat controlled Congress created tax breaks that virtually nullified those high tax rates. That is the part of history the left will never mention. FDR also placed devout Stalinists in positions of power. Those who supported the Fascists and their way of governance.
In the process of all of this, the Democrats actually changed the defination of “poverty” and used the term “poor” to reflect those who, for whatever reason, did not achieve a level of financial security that would allow them to live well. Poor, and poverty, are not one and the same. You can be poor without living in poverty. But if you lump all the poor in with those who suffer from real poverty, you have changed the dialog.
We have no real poverty in this nation. There are no starving children, no seniors living on dog food. And yes, the dialog must be changed, but we can only do it by pointing out how the left has controlled the dialog and resorted to wordsmithing in order to foist their socialist ideals on us.
Good post, antics.
One point that is either forgotten, or never known, by liberals is that many of those high income earners who are business owners don’t even really feel the effects of higher taxes upon themselves. Tax hikes are passed off onto consumers, at least in part, to lessen the impact upon the business owner. The consumers feel those tax hikes either in higher prices, or reduced quantity and sometimes quality, as the business owner makes the adjustments necessary to reduce that “pain” of higher taxation upon themselves.
This works the same way in higher corporate taxes, as well. In the end, the consumer, of which the middle class is typically their largest group, feels the pinch of those higher taxes, and they make their own adjustments, based on their own budgets, mostly in reduced purchasing of a company’s or business’ product.
The numbers given by liberals and progressives of the “cost” to the government by the Bush tax cuts differs. One such set of numbers claims that the cuts for the highest 5% is $600 Billion over a decade, with the bottom 95% receiving $2.7 Trillion in cuts over a decade. Other places have cited a $700 Billion “cost” to the government by cuts on the top 5% of wage earners, and around $3 Trillion on the bottom 95%. If one was to use the higher figures, and include the total “cost” of the Bush tax cuts, it comes to $3.7 Trillion over ten years, or $370 Billion a year. This doesn’t even come close to the deficits piled up during Obama’s reign. And, what’s more, Obama doesn’t discuss increasing taxes on everyone, just the top 5% or so. That means that his revenues, assuming no ill effects to the economy from the tax hikes, would only bring $70 Billion or so, per year, back to the government. $70 Billion when we are talking deficits of over $1 Trillion a year over the next decade(assuming no spending cuts are made).
And the thing is, the negative effects of those tax hikes upon the economy, if enacted, are unknown, while the effect of the best case scenario, where $70 Billion more a year is brought in to the Treasury, is a pittance compared to the actual deficit.
And what actual spending cuts are the liberal/progressive Democrats talking about? You got me. I haven’t heard one specific item, with the associated dollar figure, given by them concerning any spending cuts. All I’ve heard, or read, is platitudes about “entitlement” cuts, with no clear idea what they mean by it.
@retire05:
Anyone who has spent time in the services knows this very well. For my own part, when I was in the Navy, I lived with what was considered, at the time, a wage that relegated me to the roles of the “poor”, but I was in no way, shape, or form, living in poverty.
My own son, who lives away from home now, lives on a varying wage(depending on whether he’s doing supervisor duties or not) of $8-9/hour. Yes, he is poor, but he does not live in poverty either. And, what’s more, he doesn’t think of himself as “poor”, but merely starting out in life on his own, knowing that someday, if he’s worked hard, and smart enough, that he will be able to live comfortably.
Poor and poverty are not the same thing, as you so rightly point out, but the liberal/progressives have taken over the narrative and have made these terms virtually interchangeable in the eyes of many.
I’m thinking here that somehow these self appointed elite exempt themselves from this lunacy rhetoric. Could I expect them to renounce for life their wealth and income into the redistribution pipeline without holding my breath for an overlong period of time? Lead by example? Not likely.
Obama was on TV recently saying the rich ought to be ASKED to pay more.
ASKED???
The government’s ability to separate you from your money is backed by coercion.
IF Obama wants to go it through voluntary extra contributions to our debt he can take the lead.
Didn’t he recently mention how much “Extra” money he has?
Part with it and ask your rich buddies to do the same!
On July 15th Obama said:
I am willing to take down domestic spending to the lowest percentage of our overall economy since Dwight Eisenhower.
REALLY????
That is a drop from our current 25% of GDP to only 17%.
Yet Obama has not to this date named even ONE program he is willing to cut!
All he does is threaten the seniors and the poor.
In fact Obama’s own budget (the one that couldn’t get even one vote in the Senate) held domestic spending to 24% through 2018!
@Nan G:
That is the point that conservatives ought to be hammering home on a daily basis. And to think that the MSM is spreading the idea that Obama is the only “adult in the room” during these debt ceiling discussions.
Obama only proves that socialism is never for the socialist, it is only for those the socialist deems to be less than him.
If Obama, and the rest of the wealthy left, really believed they should be paying higher taxes, there are a number of things they could do to acheive that goal; they could file simple tax returns, not taking advantage of the tax breaks and exemptions they do, they could write a check to the U.S. Treasury and say “Here is a couple of million bucks to pay down the debt.” The Treasure would gladly accept it. They could give their money away, living on only that amount that allows them to be “middle class” but you noticed, when Obama raked in millions on his book, he didn’t parcel out that money to the editors, the printers, the truck drivers who delivered his books to the stores, or the sales clerks that sold his book. He took the money and ran like a bandit in the night. While Obama touts wanting to “share the wealth” when he could, he did not share his.
Where is this OECD study?
The IRS website is pretty clear that with respect to the individual income tax, the highest earning 10% (everyone making $114,000 per year and up in Adjusted Gross Income – i.e. after 401K and health insurance premium copay deductions) make 46% of the money and pay at an average rate of 19%. See Column F, Lines 150 and 174 of the first excel table at this link.
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=96679,00.html
Its tough to see where another 26% points of tax burden on income would come from with FICA taxes or other personal taxes. I’m in that top 10% group – I made $150,000 and paid $14,000 in federal taxes (Income, FICA, Medicare combined), so my total federal tax burden is under 10%.
Since we’re back to the sleight of hand distraction that envious liberals hate rich people yet again, maybe won’t hurt to post this paragraph from a recent Center for Labor Market Studies report one more time. Who knows? What it’s telling us about the increasingly rigged game that the American middle and working classes are expected to uncomplainingly participate in might eventually sink in.
Is the average American envious that he or she cannot possess this? I imagine not. Nor would the average person likely think anyone who can afford it is evil. Though the price tag might make a lot of people wonder if the richest among us might not have a few screws loose. (It is quite a nice item, as plastic fountain pens go. If that one doesn’t suit your tastes, there are plenty of high-end alternatives available.)
I would hazard a guess that an increasing level of consumption of such items at the top probably isn’t going to create many jobs or do much to stimulate economic growth. As an ever larger share of the wealth continues to concentrate at the top, working and middle class consumers have an ever smaller share with which to consume, and it’s their consumption of the goods and services produced by the U.S. economy that turns the economy’s wheels. That’s one of the serious unmentioned dangers in the trend that the Center for Labor Market Studies report reveals.
I was a Dem when O ran….I changed to Rep when I saw a man running that had no experience, $$$ backing w press support and my red flags immediately went on alert. The deluge of bs crap was indeed overwhelming and my choice was confirmed during his campaign time after time. The first time I saw him pre-election with others on a stage while our anthem played and he dressed way too casually and didnt place his hand over his heart (the others did) as he stood there in disrespect, I knew this man was a liar/fraud/cheat/pig! He knows full well that even if the rich were taxed 100% it wouldnt solve the problems he has added too financially…They all know…and yet…he/they continue on a path that will surely bring the US into quite a dilemma. He has before him now a bill that can stave off many financial woes…and yet…he ONCE AGAIN threatens! This is not the mark of a US Pres…it is the mark of a failed one. God bless the USA….whaps O with my flipflop and pulls his ears back to whence he came!
also, the fact that the poors, if he has a job that give him lower salary, no union’s fee,
but an signature to have his job secure for a renewable 10 years certainty, providing he stand to his own promises to deliver a nd give the best of his knowledge along with the acquired knowledge along the time , providing he is dedicated to his companie only and never divulge the secrets of it policy.
THEN THE REAL VALUE OF HIS SECURE JOB HAS ASECURITY FOR HIM OR HER TO IMPROVE HIS PERSONAL LIVING STANDARD BY TAKING THE WORRY OUT OF THE WHAT IF, AND THEN HE COULD HAVE AN ADDED POWER OF CREDIT OPEN TO SETTLE HIS FAMILY PRESENT NEED WITH HIS
FEELING OF SECURITY,
SO JUST TO SAY THAT BUSYNESSES ARE AN TOP FACTOR TO GET UNEMPLOYEMENT DECREASE
IN A SOCIETY, AND MORE OF, TO HELP THEIR CHOSEN EMPLOYEE TO ENJOY A BETTER LIFE FOR THEIR FAMILY AND ALSO TO BE ABLE TO PROVIDE EMPLOYEMENT TO OTHER FOR THE SUPPLYE OF THEIR OWN ACQUIRED NEEDS WHICH THOSE WHO PROVIDE THEIR NEEDS WILL ALSO PROVIDE EMPLOYEMENT TO OTHER, AND SO ON AND THE CHAIN CONTINUE DOWN TO HELP THE POORS, AND TO THE POOREST AND TO THE POOREST OF THE POOREST, AND THE SAME ON THE UPPER TOP LEVEL WITHOUT LIMITS. SO IF THE GOVERNMENT OSTRACISE THE CREATOR OF THE TOP LADDER,
THE RESULT IS NEGATIVE TO THE POINT OF WHERE THIS DEBT CEILING IS NOW.
@Greg:
It’s hardly the “sleight of hand distraction” that claim it is. Liberal/progressives, who love to label everything, have demonized so-called “rich” people, when many of those same people are private business owners who employ the majority of American workers. Meanwhile, you bring up this;
Greg, the point of that article has nothing to do with “rich” people, but instead, corporations. And yes, many high income earners work at corporations, however, the liberal/progressives lump all of them together, making it easier to demonize them.
The American middle class is not being threatened by the corporations, Greg. They are being threatened with the uncertainty in the economy, stemming from the outrageous government spending which many feel WILL lead to higher tax rates. Just why do you think it is that corporations are not hiring? There are many factors causing this, not the least of which is that companies laid off workers during the recession and haven’t hired them back, even as demand for their products may be increasing. Many companies have been forced by that recession to become more efficient, more productivity with fewer workers, and even as the demand for their products increases, they don’t see the need to hire more workers. Is that evil? Not hardly. That is good management and business practice, particularly when the managers of those companies answer to their shareholders, who demand performance and profits.
Give those companies a reason to hire more workers, one that affects their profits positively, and they will start hiring again. The government can start with unburdening the country of Obamacare, and continue with common sense tax reform(eliminating all deductions and all tax credits and lowering the marginal tax rates to the average effective tax rates, for both individuals and corporations). Then they can start honest government program cutting, even including defense, to ease the hesitation by many businesses and corporations to spend capital on improvements and expansion. And then, on top of that, close down the border to Mexico and start eliminating that draw on our society and our “piggy bank”.
Short of that, nothing in the foreseeable future put forth by the Democrats will make those companies start hiring again.
@johngalt, #12:
The rich becoming still richer is not going to increase the consumption of goods and services by a working and middle class majority that have been increasingly feeling the economic squeeze.
Increased high-end taxes is one way of moving wealth back down into the system. It’s basically the government’s only response.
An alternative would be for the working and middle classes to be paid more for their part in the production of the nation’s goods and services. That would allow them to consume more of those things–the economic equivalent of a positive feedback loop–and would also allow them to save and invest more toward their own future needs. Unfortunately, the push from those who want low high-end taxes has also been for cheaper labor–for generally reduced wages and benefits, and for fewer workers doing the same or an increased volume of work. If that can be done even more cheaply by foreign workers in an unregulated environment, you move production overseas. Overseas workers don’t spend their wages in the U.S. economy, compounding the negative effect.
If it’s the wealthiest who produce all of the jobs and economic activity, I’m not entirely sure that the results we’ve been seeing lately warrant the ever-increasing shares they’ve been receiving.
@Greg:
What you are proposing is trickle down poverty. And completely against any ecomonic philosophy, including Keynes.
How does increasing taxation on the high end create jobs? Money is not static, it only produces more when it is in play. You are like so many on the left who have this concept of Scrooge McDuck who sits around playing in his money all day. It doesn’t work that way. Businesses only grow when they put revenues back into the business FOR growth; perhaps a larger building that will hold more employees, a decrease in product cost to be more competitive. Any company that simply takes the profit and doesn’t use it for growth, will eventually go out of business as they are no longer competitive.
Now, let’s look at your view that employees should be paid more in order to spend more. Here is an example that shows you how wrong that mindset is: a hotel has 50 service workers that clean rooms, work in the kitchen, at the desk and in maintainence. Let’s say these workers are paid $10/hr and the room is $50/night. But give those workers just a one dollar increase in pay and the room rate must increase making it unafforable to those who could pay $50.00. When you increase the cost of production, you also increase the cost of the product, and make it less affordable to certain people.
Have you ever worked for someone who had less money than you? Have you, in fact, ever worked for a poor man? And what is your mind worth? If you design a widget, that makes the lives of millions easier and happier, and take the risk of investing your own money, or money you borrowed and will be required to pay back to put that widget into production, do you not deserve to get wealthy from that idea? And don’t you have the same opportunity to come up with an idea that will make you wealthy?
Marx had the same attitude you do. He felt that if the prolitariate owned the means of production, their lives would be better and they would be wealthier. How did that work out?
#14:
I suppose I could respond by asking how 3 decades of experiments with the repeated lowering of high-end tax rates have worked out for the average American working person. And for the nation. Is the country, as a whole, in better shape than it was before we started all of this?
It puzzles me that people don’t seem to grasp the simple fact that as blue collar and middle class Americans get poorer their consumption falls, and as their consumption falls the economy that employs them slows even further. This is a negative feedback loop. Further lowering of high-end tax rates to make the rich still richer doesn’t break such a cycle, because the rich don’t consume enough of the general assortment of goods and services to keep the wheels of the economy turning. They simply aren’t numerous enough to do so.
This isn’t a Marxist observation.
@Greg:
If higher taxes on the higher income earners and businesses was the answer, then explain why Obama, when his party controlled both Houses of Congress, did not encourage those higher taxes. After all, the Congress controls the tax rates, and the Democrats were totally in control for two years. Instead, Obama supported continuing the Bush administration tax rates.
Now, we are looking at the Democrats, who never bothered to pass a budget in 2010 due to fearing what that would do to them in the elections, are participating in class warfare to raise taxes on job producers. Even a simpleton understands that when you increase the cost of production, which is passed on to the consumer, it makes products less affordable to millions of people. Those taxes that you want raised would be part of production costs. And what is happening to the cost of goods that the middle class with the threat of increased taxes on corporations and job creators? Where is gas? Groceries? Companies are not expanding, hiring more people, because they really don’t know what the bottom line on Obamacare is going to cost them that will eat into their expansion funds and profit paid to shareholders.
I suggest you read more Hayak, Hazlitt, Sowell and Williams and less Krugman.
Because liberals and members of the msm in particular are so lacking in character themselves, they are terrible judges of character in other people, an example of which is as follows.
While disingenuously portraying G.W. Bush as an obtuse, aloof and snobby, spoiled, rich kid, liberals and especially the ones in the msm deceitfully portrayed B.H.Obama as a man of the people, when, in fact, the truth of the matter was that G.W.Bush was a humble, down-to-earth man of the people with character and with both executive and leadership experience and a genuine concern for what was in the best interests of America, and Obama was and still is just an empty suit, a street hustler and a decadent dilletante without any qualification whatsoever to be president, but who imagines himself to be royalty, which was predictable. G.W.Bush was the opposite of B.H.Obama alright, but not in the way that the liars in the msm claimed. In fact, Democrats just elected one of their own, a fool and a slimy low-life who is no better than they are, which, I suppose, makes him a man of the people alright, but only the dumbest, sleaziest and most neurotic people in our country. BTW, have you noticed that Democrats love, respect and admire liars and con artists? The slimier the better. Muslims aren’t my enemies. Democrats are my enemies. I’ll never be able to adequately express my contempt for those degenerates. They are an embodiment of all of that which is evil.
@Brian, #17:
It must be very hard work, carrying around all of that hate.
@Brian:
When he was in front of a camera, G.W. was nervous. Not because he didn’t know what he was talking about, but because he suffered from what some call “stage fright.” Many people have trouble speaking in front of large crowds, or the press when they know the press is unfriendly to begin with.
But if you were even to meet G.W. you would find him articulate and knowledgable about the subjects being discussed. And you have never heard anything about how he treated those who worked for him badly, even as governor. Because he is polite and considerate of those who work for him. I know people who cried when he left the Governor’s office because he was so great to work for.
To paraphrase Dan Aykroyd, Greg you ignorant slut
You said
“Increased high-end taxes is one way of moving wealth back down into the system. It’s basically the government’s only response.”
And how will the rich react Greg….Explain what you think they will do in reaction to say a 10% increase in personal income tax….or a 30% increase…Whatever it is that You will balance the budget?
@ Greg #18: Not a valid argument. It was pretty lame, actually.
@retireo5 #19: I have always been a [huge] G.W. fan. In fact, I have met and talked with George and Laura Bush, and Dick and Lynn Cheney, too. I campaigned for them in two elections. They are fine people. I would like to think that they won in Florida in 2000, because I initiated a telephone campaign to call only Democrats and Independents and to persuade them to vote for G.W. and for Mrs. Cheney’s little boy, Dicky. 🙂 (Which was what we did for Marco Rubio in 2008, too, the effect of which was that Rubio garnered an unprecedented 52% of the vote in a 3-way race, getting votes from Democrats, Independents and Republicans, alike.)
@Ron, #29:
I suppose it might depress the hell out of the market for $197,000 Sailor Maki-e fountain pens.
The high-end tax rates during the Clinton era didn’t seem to put the wealthy into terrible distress. They continued to get richer and to grow more numerous–although not so fast as during the GWB capitalism-on-methamphetamine era. The economy was doing well with the Clinton era tax rates. Federal deficits were steadily shrinking.
After Clinton, that situation was reversed in fairly short order. Compare what was turned over to GWB as Clinton left office with what Obama found waiting when he walked in the door.
Well, Greggie, there is where you make your mistake. You credit Clinton with the balanced budget that was passed by a Republican held Congress, and the Republicans held that Congress until January, 2007 when things started rapidly going to hell. You see, when a Democrat president has a Republican Congress that balances the budget, and passes laws that are friendly to business, you want the Democrat to take credit for it, but when a Democrat Congress spends out of control, like they did under San Fran Nan, you blame the president.
The economy was rocking along, doing quite well, until the Democrats took control of the House and Senate in January, 2007. Of course, that was due to Nancy Pelosi screaming about how bad the administration was because gas was $2.39/gallon. My, how times have changed.
Now, I understand you would like to ignore the fact that we suffered 9-11, went to war on two fronts (with a military that Clinton all but dismantled) and had two major hurricanes, as part of the reason our debt climbed under Bush. But how do you explain that under Obama, that debt has increased more in 30 months than it did all through the Bush years, and Obama has not had a major hurricane to deal with? How to you explain that unemployment under Bush averaged slightly over 5%, but under Obama it has been over 8% since he was in office just a few short months?
Raise taxes on the wealthy and I promise you, you will see a major wealth shift from the U.S. I hear Costa Rica is nice this time of year.
@retire05:
You do know that, in reality, the budget was not truly balanced under Clinton don’t you?
That was just a parlor trick that was played on the American people.
@retire05, #24:
I’ll restrict my claim to the positive effect of 8 years of more rational Clinton-era tax rates, and dispense with any argument about who gets to take credit for them. Federal deficits began their relentless climb again soon after the top-end rates were lowered–a reversal that set in long before 2007 rolled around. The rates are what made the difference in both cases–not which party raised or lowered them.
@Aye, #25:
The increase in the total national debt was certainly a whole lot less under Clinton than during the 8 years that immediately followed–6 of which were years with both a republican president and republican majorities controlling both houses of Congress. But like I said, I’ll stick to the issue of the tax rates.
@Greg: You said:
So the rich don’t spend money? They don’t go to restaurants that employ people? They don’t purchase automobiles that involve the employment of many, many folks? They don’t purchase homes? Furniture?
Once again, Greggie you are wrong.
At least you are consistent.
@Greggie: OMG, don’t ever get tired of blaming Bush??
Clinton had a GOP Congress that forced him to the middle. He LOWERED capital gains taxes and that spurred the economy.
Under Bush the economy grew, DESPITE the tragedy of 9/11.
As I continue to say, you are wrong yet again Greggie. But at least you are steadfastly consistent.
@Greg: In a free economy, people get paid for their contribution to the product or the economy. That is why quarterbacks get paid more than special team members. If other people want to get paid more, then they need to develop the skilles needed to make more money by contributing more. Fair is getting paid what one is worth. A janitor is not worth as much as the executive who guides the company to higher profits. In previous cultures, those who were not productive were left to die in the snow. Now, beggers like you want to choose your salary regardless of your contributions.
You Greg want to be a socialist or you already are. You want a free lunch for just showing up. Continuing down that path is a formula for failure. No country in history has been successful by spreading the wealth around.
@anticsrocks, #27:
Yeah, I know. Their endless quest for better fountain pens is probably keeping the entire Japanese economy afloat.
My guess is that mainstream U.S. consumers are responsible for the greater part of the demand for goods and services that provide mainstream America with jobs. As you diminish their buying power their demand for goods and services decreases, followed by the jobs related to filling that portion of the demand. That diminishes buying power even further. And so on. It’s a vicious cycle. A downward spiral. An observable fact.
@Greg:
Your ignorance of basic economics is astounding, Greg.
@Randy, #29:
Some people have skills for manipulating the economic system they find themselves in to their own advantage. What they’re best at producing is personal advantage.
Such people are going to hate Obama’s Consumer Protection Board with a passion.
@johngalt, #31:
No doubt. Apparently nothing leads one astray more quickly about the workings of the world than a combination of close observation and common sense.
@Greg: You said:
Finally you said something that has a hint of truth in in it. I have a question for you, since you are so worried about the buying power of the so-called middle class. How do higher taxes on the job creators help their situation, exactly?
@Greg:
What I mean, Greg, is that you take facts and figures about the economy, and draw conclusions from those based not on basic economic theory, or even previous business experience, but rather, on some pseudo-socialistic idea of how it should work. And none of it is correct. Not to mention your leaving out significant facts in your diatribes that run counter to the conclusions you present.
@anticsrocks, #33:
Although redistributing some portion of the wealth created by the economy back downward no doubt increases consumption, I won’t argue that they do. I’ll assume that the Clinton era tax rates might well be job-creation neutral. What they would do is increase revenue–one part of the solution to rising debt. The other part of the solution is spending cuts, which impact negatively primarily on people who are not wealthy. You can’t really sell one part to the voters without the other.
@Greg:
And just how much revenue would be raised, Greg?
Greg, if you owe $10,000.00 on a credit card and have maxed out your limit, is your debt reduced if the credit card ups your limit?
Man, you don’t even know simple Econ 101.
@johngalt, #36:
That would depend on the rate, I would think, and on where your Laffer curve turns downward. What percentage do conservatives believe that point is at? I don’t remember ever hearing. They do seem to believe there is such a point.
@retire05, #37:
The debt ceiling is a separate topic, I think. I would suggest that if the current game of chicken crashes the markets and sets interest rates climbing like a skyrocket, it might be that no one will be able to bring things back under control. We might see how the 2008 meltdown could have turned out differently. I would rather that worst case scenarios remain matters of speculation.
Greg, we take in enough revenue every month to pay the our debt, military, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and have $39 billion left over. So cry me a river if a few of those bureaucrats at the EPA or DoE lose a paycheck or two.
Why are people losing their jobs and Obama is giving raises to government workers?
@Greg:
Nice deflection, Greg. I asked how much revenue would be raised by increasing taxes, and I did so in relation to your discussion of Clinton-era tax rates. So, answer the question. Or, at the very least, give us your best guess.
@johngalt…#14 – You Nailed it!!… Now, could you just bottle that and serve it to the Liberals/Progressives and their not very humble “Leader” so maybe it will effervesce into their brain cells and psyche and they might finally “get it”… ??
@johngalt, #40:
Evasion seems to be the acceptable response to all such questions: What’s the Ideal Point on the Laffer Curve?
I’ll respond to your question by saying that I honestly don’t know, but I that I believe we’re presently below the point where raising taxes diminishes revenue. I would raise high-end taxes incrementally toward the Clinton era rate and adjust in accordance with the results.
GREG, geez, you activate your work here to influence here that, you also would like to get the richs
into a higher tax expanse,
dont you know by now that the richs as you call them, are people, who have already figured out the game of the GOVERNMENT, AND ARE KEEPING LOW PROFILE BUT ARE STILL WORKING TO MAKE THEIR BUSYNESS PROFITABLE, AND ARE STILL TRYING TO SAVE THEIR EMPLOYEES THE JOB THEY HIRED THEM TO DO, yes in fact they are regular AMERICANS WHO ARE MAKING THINS GO IN A SITUATION OF MANY NEGATIVES BEING DIRECTED TO THEM. I realy don’t blame them to want to decide for themself who they will help, and the GOVERNMENT ARE GOING NUT ABOUT THAT,
they would want to control the richs’s money themself, as they control the poors ,
making them believe that the government is helping them, when it is the people working and the busynesses who pay the poors, not the government
@johngalt:
$70 billion a year, per the NYT article in late 2010 re. the extension of the Bush tax cuts – wow, so only like $1.13 trillion to go!
Not to worry, Robert Reich wants to bring back the 1970s era 70% tax bracket. High-income New Yorkers and Californians will cheerfully fork over 80% of their income to government without getting discouraged, I’m sure.
Greg’s discouraged that working-class wages aren’t growing as fast as the rest of the GDP, and hence we can’t afford high levels of consumption. So corporations are shipping those jobs overseas, and the answer from the left is…what exactly? Can we devalue the dollar enough to be competitive with dollar-a-day wages in Asia? Sure, but gas will be $100/gallon, so does it really accomplish anything? I’ve heard some on the left wax poetic about the 90% tax rates in the 1950s, as if somehow those rates will bring back the good old days. The fact that the rest of the world’s industrial base was destroyed by WW2 probably wasn’t a factor, was it?
So in the end, it always comes back to simple redistribution. It’s not that those working-class wages are actually falling in real terms, they’re just falling behind the upper-middle-class. So, because everyone wants granite counter tops, flat-screen TVs, and the latest iGadget, we need high taxes to keep up consumption?
Greg, what about the fact that we consume more than we produce? Shouldn’t we have less consumption and more investment? Or do we need government to do all our “investing” for us? Investing as in padding government payrolls with good union jobs that will reliably re-elect Democrats?
Of course the examples are always corporate CEOs and hedge fund managers. Millionaires and Billionaires. Well Greg not everyone with a $200k income is a Wall Street gambler – most of them are hard-working professionals who spent a lot of years in school and actually paid attention instead of getting stoned, hard-working businessmen who took significant risks, you know, people you might actually like. So Greg if the super-rich are the target why the big hit to the upper-middle-class? Where’s your 40% or higher tax rate on $5 million incomes, you know, the ball players, rock stars, CEOs, etc.? Where’s your 1% wealth tax on fortunes greater than $100 million? I’ll know you’re serious when the wealthy liberal opinion leaders are paying up their fair share. I’m not holding my breath, Greg, because we both know that not only will they not stand for it, but there just aren’t enough of them to pay the bills even if we could somehow confiscate more of their earnings or accumulated wealth. Let’s admit the truth, these wealthy elitists really want to redistribute the earnings of the upper-middle-class to make things “more even” while retaining their own lavish lifestyles. Sorry Greg but people are beginning to see through the smoke they’re blowing.
@retire05, #39:
Money the federal government spends domestically goes back into the economy, right? It gets spent in the private sector. It’s possible that reducing that flow of cash by 40 percent overnight when the economy is in the condition it’s currently in might have some immediate and very negative consequences. They won’t necessarily be just on the government, as people like to think.
@Greg:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But how much revenue will that generate? Forget about the damn Laffer curve already!
Here’s a hint: It’s nowhere even remotely close to the $1.3-1.6 Trillion deficit we will accumulate this year. And by “nowhere even remotely close”, I mean that it wouldn’t even make a noticeable dent in the deficit. Here’s a link that might help you find the answer;
http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/15/news/economy/bush_tax_cuts_faqs/index.htm
I’ll be back to check your math.
As an addition, even if all the Bush tax cuts were reversed back to prior tax rates, it still wouldn’t come close to the deficits for the past three years, nor would it come close to paying for the difference in revenue and spending estimated for the month of August.
@Greg:
Greg, this socialist economic claptrap you are spouting only works in fairytales and the disturbed, jealous minds of academics without economic training who are still angry they were always the last kids picked for teams in grade school.
The market will pay for the fair value of a service or good. Artificially inflating the fair value of a service or good via thuggish unionization or biased government regulations are the reasons jobs go overseas, and why we are no longer the manufacturing powerhouse we used to be. This childish envy of people who are wealthy makes as much sense as me (a middle-aged, average shape physician) being jealous of Michael Jordan for making more money for a single NBA game than I normally make in a year of providing medical care. The simple fact of the matter is that I could NEVER do what Jordan did on the court, and there are a lot more people in the world who can do what I do as a physician than people with the athletic ability of Mr. Jordan. The market values his “product” more than mine, because it is rarer. Furthermore, Mr. Jordan’s abilities provided ancillary employment to thousands of people working as cameramen, sportscasters and photographers, vendors, security personnel at the NBA stadiums, maintenance people, shoe manufacturers, accountants, electricians, and God only knows what else is involved in putting an NBA game on TV for the enjoyment of millions of people. Your socialist mentality, when taken to its logical conclusion, is that Mr. Jordan shouldn’t be paid the fair value for what he contributes…and that people like me should be jealous of his success. That’s the petty, selfish, childish hateful underpinning of socialism.
It’s simple, Greg. The federal government has absolutely no business under the framework of our Constitution for being the great big sugar daddy for the masses. When the government coerces people to pay ever increasing amounts of their hard earned money in the form of taxes, then the crony politicians use the majority of that money for no purpose other than to buy the votes of the uneducated, the lazy, the selfish, and the jealous-ridden mobs – then our great republic has transformed into nothing more than the ugly mobocracy that the class warfare pseudo-intellectuals want.
It ain’t charity if they stick a gun in your face to get your money, Greg.
I think what is lost here is the reality that Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress jacked up spending by $1 trillion annually since Obama took office, none of which was paid for by collected tax revenue. All of Obama’s extra spending over the FY2007 budget is borrowed money, every penny of it. Now many people get the point that you can’t spend more than you have and call it sustainable, even liberals understand that concept, Obama at this point has been called on it by the American people and creditors around the world. Hence the call for increased taxes by liberals. The problem for Obama is that his expectation that ALL of his deficit spending can be covered by tax increases, it can’t. Bill Whittle did a nice video which I believe many of you have seen, the truth pointed out by the video is that there ISN’T ANOTHER TRILLION left to take out of the private economy. Even if you should drive tax rates to 100% with zero deductions, there isn’t enough money to cover the ANNUAL INCREASED SPENDING.
Just because the annual GDP of the country is $15 trillion, doesn’t mean that ALL of it is profit available to be taxed. This is where liberals have a problem with economics, I have encountered some liberals who actually believe 100% of the sale price (the gross) of any good or service is profit and should be taxed as such. This is where Obama gets this faulty idea he can raise taxes indefinitely and the rich are stingy. Obama is an idiot. Profit margins for most companies is in the range of less than 10% of the gross, meaning there isn’t $15 trillion to take from the economy by the government. What’s worse, now we have people talking in terms of government spending 18 or 20% of the GDP as normal (2008), where Obama is taking over 24% of it right now. What has actually happened is that government has starved the private economy of working capital with the result we now experience. Let me put this in perspective, actual annual tax revenues are running about $4.1 trillion. That represents 27.3% of the GDP being taken by the government. Spending is running around $5.4 trillion, representing 36% of the GDP.
So where’s the $1.3 trillion borrowed coming from? Most of it is printed money from the Federal Reserve via a money laundering scheme using the banks as middle men to buy Treasury bonds with borrowed money from the Fed on the secondary market. Before this crisis most of that money was from private investors and governments with excess cash from trade deficits with the US, not anymore. In short, there is no more money to be squeezed out of the economy otherwise the Fed wouldn’t be printing money to buy US Bonds to finance the deficit spending, this is what QE1 and QE2 were really about, any other understanding or explanation is simply false. And as the Chinese have correctly publicly stated, printing money causes inflation which is a technical default of bonds because it devalues the investment. More preciously, EVERY DOLLAR printed by the Fed represents a stealth tax upon everyone because it devalues the currency. Barack Obama already got his tax increase, now he just wants to formalize it by increasing the rates you can see.
BEA GDP: http://bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls
BEA government budget: http://bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=86&FirstYear=1999&LastYear=2017&Freq=Qtr&Java=Y#mid
Making a tangential point, the $14.3 trillion national debt represents $14.3 trillion dollars of locked up capital that was diverted from job creation in the private economies of the entire world. A significant portion of the national debt is owned by foreigners. How many jobs could have been created worldwide if this money were properly invested in plant and equipment creating jobs lifting people out of poverty???? That is the real issue here, the improverishing of the world’s peoples by a spendthrift greedy self serving political elite. The effect of deficit spending by governments is to impoverish the poor and keep them down by denying them jobs. And no Greg, the rich don’t use all their money idly spending on it themselves, they invest (banks, stocks and bonds) the difference creating jobs for the rest of us, they don’t stuff their mattresses with $100 bills. The rich are thee most generous people there are, it is government that is thee most stingy and thoughtless of entities when it comes to handling money.
@Greg:
No Greg, the solution to rising federal debt is to DECREASE FEDERAL SPENDING!
What you are advocating is analogous to a family that has maxed out all their credit cards and having a debt load on those cards that exceeds their monthly income going out and getting more freaking credit cards! Why can’t you understand that? When Dad is already working 2 full-time jobs, and mom can’t afford to go to work because she either 1) can’t find a job or 2) can’t find a job that pays enough money to cover the increased expenses for child care while she works, travel expenses to get back and forth from work, and the higher tax burden for making additional pre-tax income that pushes the family into a higher tax bracket – there is no ability to make the money necessary to cover the growing debt. The only solution is to tighten the belt and learn to LIVE WITHIN ONE’S MEANS. In my little analogy, Dad can’t just go over to the well-to-do neighbor across the street and demand the neighbor give him some of his “excess” money using the excuse that the neighbor “doesn’t really need it.” That is called THEFT, Greg, and it’s a crime. It doesn’t make it any less of a crime if Dad calls his brother the cop and tells him to go take money from the neighbor.
That is EXACTLY what the socialists have been doing to us since Wilson enacted the Karl Marx-originated “progressive” income tax. Take some time to study history, Greg. How on earth is it ‘fair’ for someone to have his belongings taken from him to be used to buy the votes of those too lazy to go out and earn their own belongings? If you feel so guilty about whatever wealth you have in life, then by all means, give of your own free will to whichever charity you wish, or better yet, start your own charity! But stop trying to make me drink your class warfare kool-aid as a surrogate penance for your misplaced guilt. I’ve worked very hard to get where I am, and I know better how to prepare for my own retirement than a bunch of nincompoop socialist bureaucrats!
Ever increasing amounts? A frequently made assertion on the conservative side. Perhaps we should have a look at the historical high-end federal tax rates from about 1917 through present.
In addition to that, it’s common knowledge that on the high end the effective tax rates are in actuality even lower than the statutory rates on the tax tables. The same is true in the case of large corporations. There are all manner of deductions, shelters, loopholes, and dodges, and armies of highly-paid tax lawyers working to find every possible means of legal evasion. Closing any loopholes in connection with debt ceiling negotiations is strictly off the table, of course. That, republicans insist, would be a roundabout form of tax increase.
Middle and working class taxpayers for the most part have no such relief from statutory rates. In addition. they’re subject to a plethora of inescapable taxes and deductions that constitute a far more significant portion of their total income.
Nor are democrats the only ones who have been guilty of piling on the spending. Even in the midst of all of their current clamor about irresponsible spending, the republican House managed to quietly dodge any cuts in their own lucrative farm subsidies. The House Defense Bill had no earmarks, true to the republican pledge, right? What it had was something called the Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund, totaling around $1 billion. Very slick. Both republicans and democrats will benefit, although democrats took no blood oath regarding earmarks.