The Fallacies of Taxing the 'Rich'

eyer

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In an August 15 op-ed in the New York Times, Warren Buffet wrote it was time to stop “coddling” the wealthy and called on Congress to raise taxes on those making $1 million or more.

“But for those making more than $1 million there were 236,883 such households in 2009 I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more there were 8,274 in 2009 I would suggest an additional increase in rate,” Buffett wrote.

“My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,” wrote Buffett. "“It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”

President Obama's current proposal includes raising taxes on those making over $200,000 a year.

So...

...you have an American billionaire proposing tax increases on those Americans making more than $1 million a year, and the American president proposing tax increases on those Americans making more than $200,000 per year.

Here's a pic of the President awarding Buffet, who many believe will be the next Treasury Secretary, the Medal of Freedom earlier this year:

http://www.cnsnews.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/medium/images/Buffet%20and%20obama.jpg

Billionaire Buffet contributes tens of thousands of dollars to Obama's political campaigns and to scores of other Democrats, too...

...he contributes $0 dollars to any other political parties.

While it is easy to hang a medal around the neck of a billionaire and offer him political appointment to prompt more money to get you and yours elected...

...it is impossible to hang false financial numbers around the truth to deceive the American people.

Our total debt is just short of $55 trillion right now, and it grows larger as we breathe ( US Total Debt includes household, business, financial institution, and state, local, and federal government debt).

Our national debt is currently over $14.6 trillion, and it grows larger as we breathe (US National Public Debt Outstanding represents the face amount or principle amount of marketable and non-marketable securities currently outstanding).

Our current deficit is a little over $1.4 trillion, and it grows larger as we breathe.

The debt is the overall amount owed, while the deficit is the yearly amount we've spent over the yearly amount of revenue available to spend.

So, here's the relevant numbers to consider:

$55 trillion total debt ($175,914 per American citizen; $667,648 per American family )

$14.6 trillion national debt ($46,900 per citizen; $130,700 per taxpayer)

$1.4 trillion budget deficit (revenue = $2.2 trillion - spending = $3.6 trillion)

Proposal: Americans earning $200,000 a year and more subject to tax increases

Here's the problem:

The very richest - 8,274 Americans - make $10 million or more per year; taxing these citizens at 50% - even closing all loopholes and deductions - would garner $120 billion in additional revenue, decreasing the national debt 1% and lightening the deficit by 8%...

...and if socialists tax those 8,274 Americans 100% of their income, the net to government would be $186 billion, reducing the national debt by 2 percent and the deficit by an additional 12 percent.

The total debt, being so humungous, wouldn't be practically effected at all.

If the socialists tax every American who makes $200,000 and above per year 100% on that income - including doing away with all deductions/exemptions, meaning everything they make, the government takes - it will equal approximately $1.53 trillion...

...enough to cover government's overspending this budget year.

If that was done, America would have a $0 deficit, $13.1 trillion in national debt, $53.6 trillion in total debt, and every American making $200,000 and more a year would be literally penniless - forever.

Of course, if the President and Congress simply wouldn't spend $1.4 trillion more than we have in revenue, our deficit would be $0, our national debt would be $13.1 trillion, our total debt would be $53.6 trillion, and Americans earning $200,000 and more a year would still be paying the majority of taxes.

Americans who earn $200,000 a year and over pay more than 50% of all America's personal income tax revenue already...

...how much higher than 50+% do socialists want to steal from these "rich" Americans so they can simply continue to criminally spend it?

The truth is, since even the most draconian socialist increase in taxation isn't enough to practically address our financial problems, the increase in that revenue will simply be spent on increasing current programs and funding new ones...

...with the automatic result of making our debt and deficit issues that much worse.

Consider a few other financial facts as your grasp the hopelessness in truly understanding there is no way to raise a fraction of the revenue needed by taxation to "cover" the decades of criminality the American people have allowed their representatives to commit upon them:

$3.6 trillion ($11,705 per citizen) is the current yearly interest that must be paid on our total debt, and that grows as we breathe.

$115.2 trillion ($1,028,798 per taxpayer) is the current amount of US Unfunded Liabilities, and it grows as we breathe.

By 2025, not even 14 years from now, it is projected America's revenue will only be enough to cover Social Security, Medicare, Defense, and Interest costs...

...that's it - nothing else will be provided for.

And if you understand basic compounding interest theory, you at least have a grasp of exponential compounding interest and can guess for yourself how soon America will be able to afford its debt Interest payment...

...that's it, and nothing else at all.

The magnitude of drastic financial change that must be made in this country for simple financial survival is unfathomable to the overwhelming majority of Americans...

...Buffet and Obama betray any allegiance to this great, sovereign nation and its citizenry by their disingenuousness.

[Disclaimer: not a c&p; numbers were gathered from various sources]
 
Read Mike Hudson's essay on this.

It's all about counteracting the effects of compound interest to prevent a snowball of extreme wealth.
 
Except that's utter bullshit built on other utter bullshit. Lets start with the simple fact that nobody is talking about raising taxes to 100% or even 50%. They are talking about a modest change from 36-39% and some other changes on how the Capital Gains tax function on a fundamental level. It's not at all the same things as what you are claiming.

You're also talking about a budget with no cuts and basing it off this years budget. This years budget still has 2 wars on it, both of which are winding down, it still has a stimulus bill on it which has not been repeated. Even if we did nothing but stay the course our deficiet next year would be considerably lower than our deficiet this year. That's also making the false claim that Democrats/liberals/socialist (not that there are any American socialists) aren't talking about cuts, and significant ones at that to the budget. Basically you coated bullshit in buillshit and it doesn't fly if you're aware of even the cursory facts, much less the actual details.
 
Read Mike Hudson's essay on this.

It's all about counteracting the effects of compound interest to prevent a snowball of extreme wealth.

You wanna link it?

Nothing is going to change until we address the actual problem at its root.

And unless the President and most other politicians suddenly find the key to objective honesty...

...it ain't going to ever happen.

Honesty comes first...

...then, and only then, can the issue of individual wealth be totally separated from the disingenuous interests and intents of the collective.

But that won't happen and that's why abounding disaster awaits...

...socialists can only be disingenuous in accomplishing their natural need that everyone is unnaturally equal in every way, while "snowballs of extreme wealth" and inequality willstill reside at the top of the socialist dung heap - just as has always been the disingenuous socialist case.

We could have a world debt amnesty day tomorrow and every nation on earth could start from scratch...

...but tomorrow night the socialists would just be back demanding and taking and spending other folk's money.

If enough Americans don't wake up in time to begin righting the ship socialism is sinking, the pros of the game - Communist China - will make sure the sheeple have all the fortune cookies they can eat...
 
You wanna link it?

Nothing is going to change until we address the actual problem at its root.

And unless the President and most other politicians suddenly find the key to objective honesty...

...it ain't going to ever happen.

Honesty comes first...

...then, and only then, can the issue of individual wealth be totally separated from the disingenuous interests and intents of the collective.

But that won't happen and that's why abounding disaster awaits...

...socialists can only be disingenuous in accomplishing their natural need that everyone is unnaturally equal in every way, while "snowballs of extreme wealth" and inequality willstill reside at the top of the socialist dung heap - just as has always been the disingenuous socialist case.

We could have a world debt amnesty day tomorrow and every nation on earth could start from scratch...

...but tomorrow night the socialists would just be back demanding and taking and spending other folk's money.

If enough Americans don't wake up in time to begin righting the ship socialism is sinking, the pros of the game - Communist China - will make sure the sheeple have all the fortune cookies they can eat...

But this isn't a problem the rich want to address.
 
Typical Eyer intellectual dishonesty.

The federal DEBT is largely an accumulation of prior year annual deficits.

Eeyore's whining that raising the taxes on the rich wouldn't make much of a dent in the DEFICIT is true but irrelevant: we didn't get here overnight and it's intellectually dishonest to think that the DEFICIT will go away overnight.

Also note Eeyore's sly attempt to redefine "wealthy" as those making TEN million per year and up.
 
I love the "logic". "Why tax rich people since it only solves a small slice of the deficit problem?" What if that same thinking was applied elsewhere? Why cut [name your benefit] when it only solves a little of the deficit?

The other lovable thing about this hyperbole-fortified article is that budget discussion almost always happens in 10-year projections. But in the author's (and Eyer's) attempt to make policy impact appear as small as possible, they refuse to look at more than the numbers from a single year. And also that way they don't have to look at compound interest we'd avoid over a 10-year span.

This is lying, disingenuous crap. It says a whole lot about eyer for buying into it.
 
Typical Eyer intellectual dishonesty.

The federal DEBT is largely an accumulation of prior year annual deficits.

Eeyore's whining that raising the taxes on the rich wouldn't make much of a dent in the DEFICIT is true but irrelevant: we didn't get here overnight and it's intellectually dishonest to think that the DEFICIT will go away overnight.

Also note Eeyore's sly attempt to redefine "wealthy" as those making TEN million per year and up.

Go ahead and cough up your "donations"....those are large numbers and clearly, the "Rich" can only cover a small part of it. Do you want to start paying your $11K in new taxes each year or are you going to help us reduce spending by 30 or 40% each year?
 
Typical Eyer intellectual dishonesty.

The federal DEBT is largely an accumulation of prior year annual deficits.

Eeyore's whining that raising the taxes on the rich wouldn't make much of a dent in the DEFICIT is true but irrelevant: we didn't get here overnight and it's intellectually dishonest to think that the DEFICIT will go away overnight.

Also note Eeyore's sly attempt to redefine "wealthy" as those making TEN million per year and up.

http://www.wftv.com/slideshow/money/28777633/detail.html

I don't know if this is true everywhere, but the top 10 cities for millionaires all had more millionaires than the year before. So much for shared sacrifice.
 
I agree there's half the people in America not paying any income tax, it's time they got serious about shared sacrifice, or become second class citizens.:rolleyes:

Fine. Lets go with this plan. I figure it'll take just a decade before 99% of Americans are second class citizens. But at least your brave enough to man up and admit you like that plan.
 
I agree there's half the people in America not paying any income tax, it's time they got serious about shared sacrifice, or become second class citizens.:rolleyes:


What's wrong with you Vette? Do you really think it's bad when families squeaking by on $23k per year don't have to pay income tax? (when of course they do pay payroll tax, sales tax, social security, medicare, medicaid, property tax, etc)

Sorry, where's the injustice here?
 
I love the "logic". "Why tax rich people since it only solves a small slice of the deficit problem?" What if that same thinking was applied elsewhere? Why cut [name your benefit] when it only solves a little of the deficit?

The other lovable thing about this hyperbole-fortified article is that budget discussion almost always happens in 10-year projections. But in the author's (and Eyer's) attempt to make policy impact appear as small as possible, they refuse to look at more than the numbers from a single year. And also that way they don't have to look at compound interest we'd avoid over a 10-year span.

This is lying, disingenuous crap. It says a whole lot about eyer for buying into it.

OK, tax the "rich" at 50% and then how are you going to get the other 90% of the new revenue that's needed to support the huge increase in spending over the past 3 years of democrat largess...or even a fraction of the $1.5T annual overrun? Maybe some dems can start paying a few dollars a year in taxes too.
 
OK, tax the "rich" at 50% and then how are you going to get the other 90% of the new revenue that's needed to support the huge increase in spending over the past 3 years of democrat largess? Maybe some dems can start paying a few dollars a year in taxes too.

Again we're going to cut two wars, we're not going to pass another stimulus (even though it's needed) and right there deficiet GONE, hello Surplus.
 
OK, tax the "rich" at 50% and then how are you going to get the other 90% of the new revenue that's needed to support the huge increase in spending over the past 3 years of democrat largess...or even a fraction of the $1.5T annual overrun? Maybe some dems can start paying a few dollars a year in taxes too.

As always, I've advocated for a series of spending cuts and tax increases. The Simpson-Bowls bipartisan deficit commission has it right.

Pretty sure we're not going to fix the problem following the right wing outrage by trying to squeeze pennies out of low-income families.
 
I agree there's half the people in America not paying any income tax, it's time they got serious about shared sacrifice, or become second class citizens.:rolleyes:

According to 2008 figures:

The top 50% of American earners gross $33,000 and up, and pay 97.8% of personal income taxes...

...while the bottom 50% gross less than $33,000 and pay 2.7%.

Are you actually campaigning for increased taxation on the bottom 50%?

BTW:

rosco, you, and RightField are the only posters, so far, I can read without one of you quoting the ignored...

...so please don't think I'm discriminating in responding to your post.
 
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We should have a flat tax, every one should be punished by the same percentage. There's no excuse except class warfare to maintain the status quo. The system is broken. Nobody should get a free ride. Democrats have to halt their assault on America by buying the votes of the underclass and the benighted with other people's money.


I already showed you that low income families pay a range of taxes. It's crystal clear that nobody is getting a free ride.

Not only that, but exactly how much money do you think you can harvest from people that don't make much money?
 
According to 2008 figures:

The top 50% of American earners gross $33,000 and up, and pay 97.8% of personal income taxes...

...while the bottom 50% gross less than $33,000 and pay 2.7%.

Are you actually campaigning for increased taxation on the bottom 50%?

BTW:

rosco, you, and RightField are the only posters, so far, I can read without one of you quoting the ignored...

...so please don't think I'm discriminating in responding to your post.



Awesome... You put everyone with an opposing point of view on iggy. You only want to hear from cheerleaders.

Why post?
 
We should have a flat tax, every one should be punished by the same percentage.

And therein lies YOUR problem: it's a long cherished dream of conservatives to institute a highly regressive "flat tax", but there is simply not enough popular support in America for one, no matter how conservatives spin it. (see also: social security privitation).
 
I think we should all pay 10% of income, no matter what the source or the amount, and stop violating the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Cut everything after defense the resulting revenue won't support. Stop undermining the nation's economy in order to keep the Democrat constituency on their plantation.


Minimum wage jobs mean $15,000 per year annually, minus payroll tax, medicare/medicaid and ss. So that's about 14k, which is virtually impossible to live on. You want to pull another 10% out of that, so min wage jobs pay $12.6k per year. Is that really a good idea? Do you really want to give people who work a 10% tax hike?

For people who work full-time jobs?

Really?
 
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