Once again, I say to the GOP establishment — and this includes the Romneybots, who themselves are pushing for increased “revenue enhancers” from “the wealthy” — that there’s a way to break the left’s class warfare argument, and that way is push a flat or fair tax, even if only as a rhetorical maneuver to illuminate what is meant by “fair” from the perspective of the left (progressive income tax) vs from the right (equal percentages, which results in the wealthy paying more as a matter of math and not of crony legislation).
Not that I expect this to happen, of course, because the GOP and its accommodators are every bit as invested in manipulating the tax code for political reasons as is the progressive left.
— Which is why they need to be replaced with classical liberals and constitutional conservatives, who will know how to create a useful message from the government’s own data and wield it like a giant barbed capitalist club against the Marxists and governmental ruling class (regardless of their party affiliations):
A small group of 400 of America’s most successful earners in 2009, about the number of residents living in a typical apartment building in Washington, D.C., paid almost as much in federal income taxes as the entire bottom half of America’s 138 million tax filers, which is a population equivalent to the combined number of residents living in America’s 29 least populated states, plus the District of Columbia. What makes this disparity possible is the fact that an estimated 47% of individual income tax returns filed in 2009 had a zero or negative tax liability.
When you have only 400 Americans paying almost as much in federal income taxes as the entire bottom 50% of American filing income tax returns, I think we can dismiss any notion of the rich not paying their fair share of taxes. In fact, the IRS should publish the names and addresses of the Top 400 (or to protect anonymity, agree to provide a forwarding service), so that we can all send them “Thank You” letters to express our gratitude for shouldering such a disproportionate share of our collective tax burden.
The left isn’t concerned about fair share. It is concerned with control. And if it can turn the poor against the “rich” and use government’s supposed implied morality to justify what is nothing more than institutionalized theft, that’s what it’ll do — and we as a people won’t be able to stop them until we as a people understand what it is they are doing and react with revulsion to this immoral imposition on what is, it turns out, a very small minority of tax payers.
There’s a reason the government wants to do away with charities and replace itself as the sole charitable giver: it gives cover to the theft it routinely engages in.
And a not insignificant portion of the rich will go along with it. For the cheap grace. And also because we tax income, not wealth. And what’s the point of being on top if their aren’t little people to look down upon?
The new economics is based on the premise that I can use government to extract from “the rich” all the means necessary to pay for my unlimited wants.
“Tax the rich, feed the poor, ’til there are no rich no more.” It’s just a song lyric, but it’s worth noting that it accurately predicts that you’ll run out of “rich” before you run out of “poor”.
There are terms being used which need definition. The “rich” are what was once called the bourgeoisie. This set is not even close to being congruent with the “wealthy” and in fact the “rich” are seen as disruptive and threats to the positions in society of the “wealthy”. But I repeat myself.
Since geoff is too modest to quote himself:
The Democratic Party: Buying our votes with your money since 1932.
Here’s what’s unfair: Conservative pwnage of the left’s Twitter hashtags.
#liberalismin4words, started by conservatives, was countered by lefties with #conservatismin4words, which was quickly pwned by the right.
Again.
My own senator, Mike Lee, got in some licks: “Just regulating interstate commerce” and “Constitutional? Are you serious?”
Heh.
“Die once; vote forever.”
I fleshed this out in a comment last year.
The best tax code is a progressive tax with only three rungs and virtually no deductions.
10% on people earning between $50,000 and $100,000
20% between 100,000 and $1,000,000
25% over $1,000,000
No deductions for anything other charity (which is kept at 1oo%)
It eliminates the single greatest problem we currently have tax-wise in that ~49% of the nation pays no tax. Philosophically, if you are a citizen, you should be a payer of taxes, not just loan the government money interest-free until you get a refund in late May.
It also allows for “the hard cases,” such as unwed young mothers, the out-of-work, disabled…anyone who can’t earn $50,000, basically. There is mercy and charity, in other words.
No dedudctions. The government should not intervene or pick winners and losers among behaviors or economic choices. Kid goes to an out-of-state school, high medical expenses, childcare, mortgage, bad investments et al…the government should not reward you for these choices. Yet at these brackets you won’t be penalized for making them either.
All income is earned. Sorry private-equity and hedge fund lads.
Oh, and I almost forgot, no more deductions for local property taxes. Towns and villages favored by the wealthy have long had a great thing going with this. A tax is a cost, period. If Scarsdale NY wants to charge $20,000 plus per home to live there, fine. They just don’t get to deduct it anymore.
The plan is simultaneously expansive for revenue (deductions are gone, large amounts of the country is put on the tax rolls) while sharply increasing take home pay for many. The left should like it in that the inequities are gone (e.g. carried interest), loopholes are closed and provisions are made for the struggling and disadvantaged. The right would like it because it will put a lot more money in people’s pockets without spending a dime.
Moreover, it takes the power out of the government’s hand. Our tax code is a weapon, tamable only for those with the money to hire lobbyists to bend it to their will or the ability to hire accountants to circumvent it.
You’re going to have a hard time getting the “lucky duckies,” as the Journal likes to call the 49%, to pay anything if you’re only taxing incomes over $50K, Roddy
I think it looks good Roddy. You have to think of our existing 14ft high tax code as 200 years of lobbyists and politicians stealing everything that’s not nailed down and screwing everybody in sight. A clean slate, everything works or doesn’t on it’s own economics, not crony economics. Any idea what it would be as a % of GDP in 2012?
I’m seeing median household income at right around $50k. For a comparison, the Census Bureau pegs a household as officially poor if it pulls in below $19 to $23k (depending on one or two adults).
I’m just spitballin’ here, but I would tie tax rates to the poverty level. Income up to 105% of poverty I wouldn’t tax. 105%-315% I’d tax at 5%. 315%-945% I’d tax at 15%. 945% and up I’d tax at 25%. I’d also cap welfare benefits at 105% of the poverty level, and tie the right to vote to paying taxes.
And no, I have no idea what dollar amounts I’m talking about, since I have no idea what the poverty level currently is. I’m just throwing a notion out there.
I was seeing the same thing bh ($48K as the median).
SO, using bh’s $19k as my base, here’s my proposed tax brakets:
5%) $19,951 — $59,850
15%) $59,851 — $179,550
25%)$179,551+
You guys are gonna get it if JHoward shows up.
He can have his frakken gold standard or he can abolish the income tax, but not both.
That’s the
pricesacrifice we all have topayshare./sarc
Oh, to hear some politician just say “Life’s not fair. Grow up.”
Eliminate the premise that taxes could ever be fair and then go from there.
“And no, I have no idea what dollar amounts I’m talking about, since I have no idea what the poverty level currently is. I’m just throwing a notion out there.”
– Actually you’re not that far off. The current poverty level is set at below 17.5K annually, which assumes you live in a Dipsy dumpster, and eat just one meal a week, so theres still room for taxes if you cut back on breathing.
one of ericholders’ “my people™”
What you have is a bunch of haters, people that tell lies, people that want to go back to the ’50s. White man rule. White man only.
Here in the state of Wisconsin we have people that lie. They want money and they only care about themselves.
You know the statistic came out that the minority population would soon be exceeding the white population and all of the sudden we start having fear. And they started [saying] “Let’s get guns. And you know, let’s go back to the ’50s ways, where we could just kill people and hang people” and go back to that time that we tried to get so far away from. That’s what we’re up against.
We’re up against people … who want to concentrate on those type of things so they don’t have to concentrate on their pocketbooks. In the meantime, they’re voting for someone who’s taking money out of their pockets, but tells them they can have guns and be hateful.
link
“#GOPEstablishmentIn4Words Feckless unless continuously kicked.”
I wonder why you guys would prefer a progressive tax code though? A flat tax is already progressive in absolute dollars.
I’m not even sure that I like that.
I wonder why you guys would prefer a progressive tax code though?
yea all the mischief of the current system “reformed” so it can be deformed at a later date.
bh, I’m not at all interested in an indexed tax code. I’m with Neal Boortz and the Flat Tax, since we have to wean our slackers off their benefits pipe gradually.
bh, I want to go all Old Testament, and have everyone pay the same tax. Like, $2,500 per year for everyone older than 18. No deductions, no progressiveness so some people pay more. Just a straight up capital tax.
Sigh, a girl can dream.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d be happy just to have my taxes lowered as a first step.
Still… when people people pay different amounts for the exact same thing this creates fundamental distortions. How can citizens make rational collective cost benefit decisions if the individual costs can vary so much?
Let’s imagine identical cars cost $0, $5K, $20K, or $250K depending on the buyer. One thing we know for sure is that each of these buyers would be wasting their time to consider the quality compared to the average unit cost of the car. It simply wouldn’t be relevant.
But, that’s exactly what we need voters to be thinking about and voting on.
Make me tyrant for the day and I’d say that’s the fairest option, sunny-dee.
(I should probably make it clear that I’d support any tax scheme that was broader and flatter than the current one. And I wouldn’t expect perfection tomorrow. I just find the progressive income tax to be an active detriment to people making the proper decisions.)
But, that’s exactly what we need voters to be thinking about and voting on.
raising taxes on the “rich” vs raising every bodies’ taxes
Make me tyrant for the day and I’d say that’s the fairest option
Works for me, as long as we don’t have to return to the city of our births to be taxed.
raising taxes on the “rich” vs raising every bodies’ taxes
to be clear: a progg tax that can be politically manipulated vs flat tax
Y’all don’t get it. If you go to a flat tax or some other tax scheme where everyone has skin in the game it will put an end to the whole system of ‘free stuff paid for with Other Peoples’ Money’ that our government depends on. They need you to know that you’re getting more than you paid for and way more than you deserve. It keeps you grateful.
They need you to know that you’re getting more than you paid for and way more than you deserve.
First Social Security recipient put in $24.75 – got back $22,888
I am not opposed to a flat or fair tax so much as not wanting to have that fight now. I want a mandate on spending, I want the fairness argument to be about whether or not it is fair to tax our children and grand-children and people who have not even been born yet in order to pay really cushy wages and benefits to government employees and unions today. Get a mandate for reforming spending, elect Senators & Reps committed to reforming spending, and reforming the tax code will be included.
Here’s a good example.
– The last one will put in 2,288,800, and get back 24.75, so it all works out.
I want the fairness argument to be about whether or not it is fair to tax our children and grand-children and people who have not even been born yet in order to pay really cushy wages and benefits to government employees and unions today.
i want a discussion of whether most of the fed. gov’t is necessary.
Yeah, my initial phrasing of the question (“prefer a progressive tax code”) didn’t acknowledge possible incrementalism or tactics in the service of greater reform.
I was sorta going off of Roddy’s “the best tax code is a progressive tax” and lumped that into “you guys”.
Mea culpa.
Oh, my last was towards motionview’s comment at 8:50.
I’d be satisfied for now with an end to withholding so that people really have to suck it at the end of the year. I’m less troubled by how parasites who pay nothing havie a sense of entitlement than I am by all the liberals I know who make morbid jokes about how much money they’ll finally have when their in-laws do the decent thing by kicking the bucket. I didn’t notice it so much when I was younger, but I’m really getting an increasing sense of how many of these people live well because their retirement plan is inheritance.
“i want a discussion of whether most of the fed. gov’t is necessary.”
– Hey now, Without the Fed who would there be to save us from light bulb somonella, or help us save billions in fuel bills by fixng the thingamajigs on our furnaces, or making sure our tires are over inflated. Ingrate.
havie(?) = having.
actually that should be have.
I’ve heard the same thing a surprising number of times, Abe.
That’s appalling that they actually say that to you. Thinking it is one thing (who hasn’t?) but saying it? Please. Control your inner monologue, already.
All good ideas (except the retire when Mommy & Daddy finally die plan). Tax day should also be moved from April to October.
if the effin losers(hey orange guy?) were serious in dc this would be no. 1 for repeal:
In the 1974 Budget Act, Congress slipped this concept into the budgeting process. What it means is this: spending in the next fiscal year that supports all the programs — the current services — in the current fiscal year is automatic: it is the baseline.
Think about that for a second. The “no change in spending” condition in Washingtonese means that if, for instance, there are more claimants to a service such as Social Security or Medicare, that is “no change.” It also means that all the expenditures to maintain current services represent “no change.” That is, the promotions, pay increases, adjustments for inflation to maintain current services represent “no change.”
Why is this important? Because the method for financing the government without a budget is a “continuing resolution.” And a continuing resolution is used to maintain current services.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/obamas_spending_and_the_dog_that_didnt_bark.html#ixzz1xjjVC5XD
– Leigh, when you think about, its hard to see anything about our present situation, or the next few years for that matter, that isn’t appalling.
– And then you have ~O~’s camp talking about how he’s gearing up to give his first full blown campaign speech in Ohio where he plans to talk about the things he will surely come up with soon if we just move forward, and how those things he’ll think of any day now will make things even better than he did in his first term.
– I’m not sure there’s a word in the English language that captures that magnitude of total dissonance.
It is cognitive dissonance for sure. Dicentra or Jeff or sdferr probably know a fitting $5 word for it.
Romney has already done a preemptive strike on Obama’s speech today. Let’s watch Buh-rock react tomorrow. Because he’s an undisciplined putz who can’t help himself, you just know he’s going to step on his lizard.
– Yes, as was said in that piece today, describing him as a <hyper-cautious risk taker.
– He’ll probably carefully look over every possible response and then choose the biggest lie, as long as he thinks it makes him look good.
The word you’re looking for is doublethink.
I’m all for a flat 10% on all income. That’s federal, and that should be enough. Beyond that, the states have to work it out themselves.
– LB, the problem is that with many border or close to border states, the lack of immigration control is bankrupting them. If we don’t get a handle on all the wellfare/healthcare fraud going to illegals, lowering Fed taxes will just be offset by states who will rush to grab the reductions.
– The problems are systemic.
– And I think its pretty clear that bankrupted states dependent fully on Fed handouts is just the way Bummblefuck and the Left want it.
The act has been amended several times, especially through provisions in the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. The original 1974 legislation, however, remains the basic blueprint for budget procedures today.
yea let’s keep doing the 1974 thing. eff this nixon/ford/carter stuff:
Kings By Steely Dan
President Ronald Reagan – Liberty State Park [Pt. 1]
BBH, don’t I know it. That’s why I’m saying the Feds only get 10%, and they only do their constitutional functions with it, no more.
Welfare, healthcare, unemployment, government provided pension (read: social security), environmental agencies, education, ALL of that shit needs to be funded by the various states, not the feds. All THEY need to do is protect the borders and the constitutional republic system. The states should have a competitive tension among themselves that handles all that other shit reasonably, or they fail.
They’ll figure it out eventually.
I’d agree with that and it might have the interesting (and awesome!) side effect of ushering in a multiple generation economic boom, Lee.
Obama: Previewing Thursday’s economic speech
Let it show on the record that when the American people cried out for economic help, Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well if it’s a definition he wants, I’ll give him one. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/9.1.80.html
– All great stuff nr, but as was said, we don’t have a Reagan to smack our asses straight this time, and you can bet the Left will do everything they can to impede any real advances should we win back the WH.
– Yes they will lose more and more power as people see just how anti-independence they are, but that will all take time if we can even make it happen, so no matter how you look at it, things are going to remain tough for some time. One bright spot that I can see is that 2+ trillion waiting to be invested when business can see the free market attack from hell is over
Yeah, that sounds good and all, but…
Has the debt clock hit “time to give up” yet? Seriously. It’s a variation on a question I had in another thread.
I’m about to work my ass off to get the most conservative Senator possible elected to Kohl’s open seat here. Is that just stupid? A waste of time? Should I just buy as much opium as I can lay my hands on instead?
bh,
no reason you can’t hustle for votes and invest in commodities at the same time.
bh,
Should have Hillary passed on Everest? Should Columbus have stayed in sunny Spain? Should Mick Jagger have got a haircut?
You’re talking crazy man!
“Should I just buy as much opium as I can lay my hands on instead?”
– Unfortunately, you could run out of happy dust and wake up to an even bigger mess than when you checked out.
Heh.
I suppose I’m just saying that I don’t need anyone to blow smoke up my ass when we’re behind at half time but the “we’re totally fucked”, “failshit America”, or “it’s been predetermined since de Tocqueville” makes me just want to quit and find a cheerleader to have sex with before the meteor hits.
Absolutely right on the baseline budgeting nr.
– If thats your plan nr, then one of your commodity investments needs to be Astroglide.
“failshit America” isn’t aimed at you so please to not stand in front of that bullet cause that’s how people get hit by bullets, lots of times
almost always, really
I like the original idea, let the Feds figure out how much they need then bill the individual States for it according to population.