Super rich pay no taxes

Originally posted by Endorra

Is that what they got you to believe? My money does not come from rich people. Do you think the CEO of Walmart is as rich as he is because he got his money from rich people? Or is he rich because of all the money he makes off of poor people?
Where is the money coming from again? No rich person ever gave me a job.

I take it you didn't watch the video......... There just aren't enough Rich people to tax to pay for things. Even if you took all their income 100% tax, that's how badly we are in debt.
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On a side note.... how much in % total income tax paid, do the top 10% of Americans pay? I'm curious as to your answer.

reply to post by charles1952


You are either badly confused, or you simply do not get how a budget process works.

First of all, the 2009 budget was GWs last budget, and every Tarp afterwards is a direct result of the crisis created under to GW admin, and for repubs to pretend that we aren't still paying off the failures of the GW admin is either a testament to their ignorance or their dishonesty.

reply to post by charles1952

You may be talking about your own situation, but aren't many people hired either by rich people or rich corporations? Many aren't, they're paid by the local baker to serve as an assistant and so on. But, even in that case, the baker has enough moEney to pay the employee, more than he needs for his immediate needs. A poor person can't give anyone a job as he has nothing to pay them with.

You certainly are confused. Clearly you don't understand how the market system works at all.

Corporations or bankers don't give people jobs in order to give them money. They wouldn't be in business long if they did. Whether the guy sells his ability to clean pans or design a web site, that person is selling a service, the same as the business person.

You act like the worker is bum asking for a hand out, when the worker is every bit the entrepreneur as the person who pays that person for their service.

Rich people expect government to provide them a service. People like you think working people should pay for the services that corporations receive from government.

reply to post by poet1b

Dear poet1b,

You are either badly confused, or you simply do not get how a budget process works.

Perhaps I'm both.

The 2009 Budget Bill wasn't passed until after the 2008 elections which gave us a Democrat House and Senate. It was signed by Obama. Portions of earlier budgets and spending decisions affected, but did not control, the budget. Bush signed the first of the two TARPs in 2008. Obama decided he would pay for a second TARP. I've seen analyses contending that the first four months of 2009 could fairly be attributed to Bush, but only a very few, mostly partisan, people stick Bush for all of 2009.

You seem to be saying that Obama had to run up the deficit to unheard of levels in order to deal with the financial situation. No he didn't, he had several options and picked the most expensive. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked. (To be kind, I could say that it may work, but so far it's been the slowest recovery in history.)

and for repubs to pretend that we aren't still paying off the failures of the GW admin is either a testament to their ignorance or their dishonesty.

As has been pointed out, we're not paying anything off, we're getting deeper in debt. By the way, what failures? The war in Afghanistan which Obama said was the good war, the one we should be fighting? Or are you talking only about housing and sub-prime lending? That will get us back to Clinton.

I'd like to have my thinking made more clear. Please tell me about the mistakes I've made in this post (or others). I'd be happy to change my mind if my information is wrong.

With respect ,
Charles1952

reply to post by poet1b

Dear poet1b,

Perhaps I didn't write clearly.

Corporations or bankers don't give people jobs in order to give them money. They wouldn't be in business long if they did. Whether the guy sells his ability to clean pans or design a web site, that person is selling a service, the same as the business person. . . . when the worker is every bit the entrepreneur as the person who pays that person for their service.

I completely agree and always have.

You act like the worker is bum asking for a hand out, . . .

I don't think that's true. See my comments above. He's making a deal with a business, the customer makes a deal with the business, and around it goes.

Rich people expect government to provide them a service.

Everybody thinks government should provide a service. Law and courts, roads, etc.

People like you think working people should pay for the services that corporations receive from government.

Sorry, I started to lose you with "people like you," and became completely lost by the end of the sentence. Maybe if you offered some examples?

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by charles1952


Example

That huge expensive Navy that keeps commerce around the globe benefits people who make tons of money from international trade far more than the guy selling his skills to some local person in need of those skills

Can you see how Walmart benefits far more from the US navy than a person selling their skills locally, so people making large amou Ts of money from international trade, and purchasing larger amounts of goods and services from international trade should pay a lot more for the services the US government provides to keep those international trades going.

reply to post by poet1b

Dear poet1b,

Thank you, that makes sense. I completely agree that any particular government benefit is likely to help one group more than another. Some benefits help commerce (although someone might argue if the flow of oil is cut off the little guy will be really hurt) and some help the poor, homeless, old, or sick. I really don't know how those benefits work out, but I know we spend more on Medicare and Medicaid than we do for the military.

You raise a good point, though. Is the government taking much more from the poor than the value of the services provided? Thanks for bringing it up.

Anything else I might have overlooked? I don't know how else to learn.

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by charles1952


Most of the fed gov expenditures goes to the military and interest on the debt for money spent on the military. Medicaid mainly goes to illegal immigrants who serve the interests of the rich by lowering wages.

Medicare is paid for by separate funding.

You really need to get informed.

reply to post by poet1b

Dear poet1b,

You really need to get informed.

That's exactly why I'm here, to get informed. I found Office of Management and Budget figures for the most recent budget. This is what they said:

Medicaid, Medicare and other Health Care 22%
Social Security 21%
Welfare and other Entitlements 19%
SUB TOTAL 62%
National defense 19%
Interest 6%
Education 4%
Foreign Affairs 1%
Everything else 8%

So even if all the interest is due to the military, and it's not, the military only spends a quarter of the budget.

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by XLR8R


Were any of you advocating for a flat tax alive before the gold standard went down?

Just wondering.

We shouldn't however rely on the past for solutions for the future.

reply to post by poet1b


Medicaid goes to American citizens.

You are obviously too biased at this point to make a fair judgment on this issue.

reply to post by charles1952


Nonsense, Medicare and SS is not paid out of the general budget.

Medicaid is paid out of the general budget, and mostly spent on illegal immigration. And you dont provide links to your claims.

Provide some links and I will prove you wrong.

reply to post by poet1b

Dear poet1b,

Use the chart on the bottom of the page, it shows the amount proposed in Obama's 2013 budget. nationalpriorities.org...

Here's one for the 2011 budget. www.cbpp.org...

Most of the fed gov expenditures goes to the military and interest on the debt for money spent on the military.

Would you provide some evidence for your statement? I haven't seen anything yet that supports it.

With respect,
Charles1952

Only fair income tax .... a flat tax.
The uber-rich pay 10% of everything .. income and investment income ...
The middle class pay 10% of everything ... income and investment income ...
The poor pay 10% of everything ... etc etc

That's the ONLY kind of 'pay your fair share' plan that is actually fair.

reply to post by charles1952

That makes me think that you're suggesting that the State can take anything from anybody if the State determines that that individual doesn't need it. Not surprisingly, that position frightens me.

I can't imagine any household needing more than one car per adult driver, or needing a gun, or your crazy neighbor's marble collection with 320,000 marbles. The idea that anything we don't need is the State's bothers me on a philosophical basis, even before we get to the problem of incentivization.

Hi, charles

I'll try to make my position more clear, but don't count on it being accurate and savvy in terms of economics; I am not very well versed in such matters.

I hold my position based on what I see going on around me, and what I gather from images and stories on the web. I see a lot of desperate poverty in some parts of the city, and in parts of the entire world, including First World countries, where abject hopelessness leads to stagnation and apathy. If a person feels trapped and lives among unemployed, hopeless, angry people, they are at a distinct disadavantage should they choose to try to pull themselves out of it.

An overarching depression and listlessness settles on an entire community. Depression is contagious; and when a child is carried by a depressed, stressed mother (or a crack-addict) they are immediately subjected to those same damaging circumstances. Their infant brains begin to grow in that environment, and of necessity, they learn "survival" skills that at some point become permanent. A child who grows up surrounded by life-threatening instability, violence, want, and distracted, unfit parents will not develop into a contributing member of society.

True, one attentive, caring adult can alter a trajectory, but we must be realistic about the dearth of caring adults in some of those communities. But when one has a parent or care-giver who is struggling to survive and cope, using faulty skills, one does not grow into a healthy, well-adjusted person.

Nevertheless, that person is sexually viable and then more children are born. It's a cycle.

In adjacent areas, there are people who have so much that they never learn the value of hard work, of prioritizing, of extending themselves to reach out to their fellow citizens. All they know is luxury, and how to keep up with their neighbors' luxurious lifestyles.

They despise the poor, who they see as lazy scum, and the poor despise them in return. That does not make for a cohesive community. Now, if the wealthy Mrs Money comes over to the falling-down house of the extended family of baby Destitute and offers to help get the house above "unfit" conditions, does that hurt Mrs Money? No. Does it help her? Possibly, if she can appreciate the intangible rewards of being a compassionate person. Does it hurt the Destitutes? No. Does it help them? Yes, and if Mrs Money offers to exchange this help for help in return, say, trimming her hedges, both people have gained even more, and baby Destitute will have a slim shot at living a decent life.

I never said anything about excess belonging to "the State", and I don't think that's the answer. I'm not a communist. I just think that hoarding wealth and spending one's time trying to figure out where and how to hide it from the rest of society, who desperately needs it, is psychopathy.

People should not be starving to death, anywhere. Typhus and cholera and malaria should not be a problem anymore. But they are. While the uber-rich are choosing which yacht to purchase or signing papers for yet another summer home in the Hamptons, people are dying of starvation, or of preventable disease.

I just can't begin to fathom how that's okay. How callous to see these things happening, and not want to make it better.
But, I know that not everyone sees things that way, or feels the least bit of compassion for fellow human beings.

I live in the middle class, where people are decent to one another and helpful, not murderously desperate, nor callously selfish.

Originally posted by poet1b

You act like the worker is bum asking for a hand out, when the worker is every bit the entrepreneur as the person who pays that person for their service.

I am guessing that you have never been an entrepreneur. Once you are a Small Business owner, you start to see things in a vastly different light.

Please elaborate on your above statement. As a entrepreneur, I take great offense to that statement. My employee's don't risk THEIR capital on this venture of mine. They don't do all the strategic work of planning each year and formulating our marketing for the year. They don't expand the business when the opportunity presents itself, even if the "Great Recession" as they are calling it. They didn't go through years of little or no pay while the business was growing to it's current size.They are parts of my business that I often have to end up replacing, sometimes almost 40% of my workforce from season to season. In short, Do I need employees, yes, are they as integral as having fellow entrepreneurs in my company, hell no. Each employee can be replaced with an equally suitable employee with a little training for the most part....you can't say the same for replacing an entrepreneur.

reply to post by charles1952


Your own links prove me right

SS and Medicare are not paid by income tax, they are paid for by a special tax that corporations do not pay, and rich people only pay up to a middle class income.

Military is the biggest expenditure of the general budget in you links. I wonder where corporate welfare in the form of TARP is put into the picture.

If you are not worth millions, why do you support tax policies that are not in your best interests?

reply to post by pavil


Obviously you have no idea what it takes to become a skilled worker.

You don't recognize that the people who hire you see you as expendable as you see your employees to be?

These days most people hiring unskilled workers are hiring illegals, and as far as I am concerned they are a bunch of criminals.

Oh! And illegals risk their lives to escape their oppressive countries, only to be exploited by people who see them as inferior and expendable.

reply to post by wildtimes

Dear wildtimes,

Your post is one of the very best I've ever seen. I think I'm in love. (Hope you're a girl) It is both completely correct and movingly presented. I agree, I agree, I agree. (I've got to tell the Mods about this one. In case you can't tell, you've completely bowled me over.)

This battle against selfishness and greed has to be fought in the hearts of men. Anything one is forced to do, doesn't provide any ethical or moral value. I'm with you.

Hey, everybody. Why are you reading my stuff? Go back and read wildtimes' post again.

With respect,
Charles1952

What this country needs is to return to the pre-regan era tax code. 70% tax on the wealthy. Its not like they can't afford it.