Re: Dems: highest 2% of earners,who already pay 50% of all incm taxes, must pay even
If your neighbor has more than you do, is it OK to take it from him?
If he brings home a new laptop computer for his son at school, and another for the family at home, is there anything wrong with your walking into his house and taking one of them?
If he designs a new light bulb that uses less electricity but doesn't have weird colors like today's CFLs, and makes a lot of money selling them, and buys all new clothes for his family and trades in their two 10-year-old clunkers for two new econocars, should there be any problem with you walking in, taking half the new clothes, and taking away one of his new cars for yourself? Why shouldn't you be allowed to do this?
If he hired a contractor to build a new swimming pool in his backyard, would THAT make it OK for you to walk off with his clothes and car, and maybe lift his ATM card and take 1/3 of his bank account?
It wasn't that long ago when any of these actions by you, would be correctly labelled "theft", and you would wind up in jail for doing any of them. And your acquaintances would regard your fate as just and right, and wouldn't lift a finger to help you. Including the acquaintances who had no more than you did.
One of the most ominous signs of how thoroughly infected our country has become with the socialist disease, is the degree to which the above actions have become acceptable in recent years, at least if we use government to do them instead of using a tow truck and a purloined ATM card. Look in this very thread, for the number of people who have blithely assumed that people who earn more than they do, should be forced to pay more than they do. Some are even snarling with delight at the effects of these actions, as though it was the people who earned the money who deserve punishment rather than the people stepping in to take it away. It has gotten to the point where many of these people simply assume that those with more income, are themselves wrong or evil or some other state that makes them legitimate targets for losing the rights to what they have earned - a punishment formerly reserved for rapists, thieves, and murderers.
Would it be a good idea for people who have more, to pay more? Of course it would. And so they do - inevitably, every time, completely aside from the resources taken away from them by the takers. How many jobs did your wealthy neighbor support - and pay for, quite directly - on a computer assembly line when he bought two new computers? Compare that to how many you supported, who have not bought a new computer in years. How many seamstresses and clothing designers did he support - and directly pay for - especially considering that he made sure that the clothes he bought had "Made in the USA" labels on every piece, and paid higher prices for them as a result? Compared to you, who last bought a package of Hanes at Wal-mart three years ago? How much of his money did he put in a 401K fund, or even leave in his savings account... to be borrowed by someone else to by a car or pay a college tuition? Did more of his money go into that, than did your money? How many car assembly lines have YOU supported by buying a new car recently? Or house builders? How many job have YOU created by starting a new business or expanding an old one?
Probably the single most insidious and destructive effect of the "get the rich" mantra being pushed so zealously by those on the left in this country, is the discouragement and removal of the property rights our ancestors fought for. All the spending, and investing, and genuine transfers of wealth described above, depend absolutely on people knowing their rising incomes are theirs to keep... because then they never keep them. Every last dollar is ALWAYS spent, or lent, or invested, or otherwise returned to circulation. Every last one. No one stuffs a mattress or lights cigars with $100 bills... despite the cartoons penned by those who want us to believe it were so.
Next time you hear some whining simp shout that "the wealthy should pay in proportion to what they earn", remember that they are ignoring the fact that the wealthy already do... and the simps want that to change. They actually want the wealthy to be STOLEN FROM in proportion to what they earn. How much of the above genuine transfers of wealth, will no longer take place if the shouters and takers get what they are demanding from the rest of us?
A look at the shape of our present economy, will answer that question for you. But you may not like the answer you get.
I am not advocating that everyone should have the same income, regardless of their intelligence, their contribution to society, or their willingness to work hard.
So most of your exemple do not relate to what my position is on taxation.
Basically I am looking at two items:
One would be how far do you think the current trend (wealthiest getting wealthier, poor and middle class getting poorer) is sustainable? The fact is that, when the poor or the middle class have enough money to spend, the wealthiest, who own most of the production outlets benefit from the middle class spending.
There is no problem with a difference in income. What is the problem is what we have seen: about 15 years ago, the average CEO would make about 200 to 250X more than the average worker in any specific industry. Today, that gap has increased to over 500X! It is the excessive disparity in income that is not healthy nor fair, not the disparity in itself. It is the EXCESSIVE disparity in income that is not sustainable, not the disparity in itself.
Second: Imagine a middle class person making $100,000 a year, paying his FICA taxes (that leaves about $86,500 per year), then his income tax after the deductions for his 2 children and his wife (about $20,000 year in Federal taxes). He is left with about $65,000 a year to pay for his housing, to raise his family, to save for vacation, college tuition, and "catastrophic" illnesses or accidents. Depending on where that person lives, he is considered far above the middle income, and yet, I can assure you that he has a little trouble putting aside additional money in his 401K toward retirement (so he doesn't get the tax break for contribution to 401K), and his basic expenses (health insurance, car payment, car maintenance, gas, utilities) are about the same as the person making $1 million a year. By the way, to make that much money ($100,000) this man is obviously fully employed and is a good worker.
Now let's take the person who makes $1 million a year. He/she gets the same FICA taxes (about $13.500 a year), the same deductions for his/her 2 children and spouse, and is paying a little more tax because income above the $250,000 level will be taxed at a higher rate (currently 34.5 %). However, that person, if you consider the same basic deductions, and the same basic taxes, brings home over $850,000 a year. Plenty to increase his spending power (mostly trips overseas, luxury items, maybe even a tax free new condo in the Bahamas or Costa Rica). This still leaves plenty of money to invest. . .thus he builts up wealth, in addition to income (which the previous middle class person couldn't do, or at a MUCH lower level). That wealth is not taxed at all from year to year. The return on investment is taxed at a LOWER tax than the first person's federal tax (15% instead of 20%). In addition, the $1 million earner benefits from a slew of tax shelters, and takes every tax loopholes he can get.
Yet, this person in real terms, even if he/she pays $150,000 in federal tax, while the first pays "only" $20,000 federal tax, pays proportionally less tax than the little guy because he has paid the SAME amount of FICA taxes, has benefitted from every tax loop holes, and dividend taxes, and everything else that lowered his tax bill, and he has not been taxed on this wealth. Therefore, instead of having to live on about $65,000 a year, he lives on a minimum of $750,000 a year.
And, because he uses all the services provided by the government (corporate welfare for airports, highways, communication, subsidized development, such as luxury golf communities, lake front real estate, and tax discount on his $1 million mortgage (instead of the $125,000 mortgage the first guy has), he is actually getting a lot more out of the government support than the first person.
I believe that the big problem is that we focus on basic mathematic to see what is "more tax" or "less tax," not on what the take home pay really represents. It is not about "how much money I pay in tax," it should be about "how much money I take home and what can I do with that money."