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I know exactly whom you meant. You made clear in #1691 that we shouldn't expect to get much from "the remaining 7%," so who does that leave to shoulder the tax burden other than "the rich"?
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No, voters don't want to pay higher taxes and they don't want to substantially cut the size or scope of government. It's the same sort of head-in-sand nonsense that led us to catastrophes like 9/11, Katrina, etc.
So, if that's true, then one can get the same result by raising taxes on the top 20% by 9.6% and leaving the bottom 80% alone. I'm not necessarily advocating for such a scheme, but it does illustrate how full of it Joe is. The top 20% can easily pay enough to close the gap, and any tax increases on the bottom 80% is little more than symbolism.
Should spending be curtailed? Absolutely. Is it necessary for the poor and middle class to pay "a whole lot more" in order to balance the budget? Absolutely not.
This is the most amusingly dishonest thing I have seen posted in a long time. Putting "the rich" in quotes (like they don't really exist), pretending the relatively small population has anything to do with their ability to pay more. Pretending that because of their small population the rich are nearly helpless and clearly the reason they have not been taxed more is their inability (or something - whatever) to pay more. And winding up with the twofer of invoking "even Liberal" and the implicit assumption that in fact there is no way current government spending is sustainable - with no proof for any of it offered.
All wrapped up and presented as "fact". Awesome entertainment.
Obviously. Because as Willie Sutton once said "that's where the money is."
I had forgotten I was thinking this, but thanks to Greg UK, I remembered while waiting for the AL game to start: This is not meant to be picking on Bitter Mouse, who is one of my favorite members of the liberal cabal and favorite posters on the site, but do any of you true historians think that this sentiment is - even more, recently - in danger of being oversold? I feel like I hear it quite a bit about everything, and it might be a fault of a recent publishing trend with everything from pencils to rats to the color mauve and such. Do any of you who traffic in true historical scholarship (Fernigal, MCoA, Greg, etc.) think that it gets carried to far, and fear that it might be as well in your own work if you aren't careful?
<Blush>
I do think there is a tend to oversell everything as the most important thing ever, in history and other things. I blame James Burke (awesome shows though). And yes I am likely guilty as charged. The upside though is you poke around regarding Salt, or Irish Monks, or super-Volcano's and learn a bunch of cool stuff. Just don't take any of it too seriously.
We don't even have a landline. Anything interesting in the call, or... not really?
We don't even have a landline. Anything interesting in the call, or... not really?
Rasmussen is an automated poll, you respond to recorded questions by pushing phone buttons. They did Presidential Approval, Romney/Obama & Allen/Kaine (VA Senate). Asked several questions about voting frequency, certainty of voting, and possibility of changing mind. Also asked age range, gender, race/national origin, marital status, children 18 or younger, liberal/conservative/moderate, and income range.
Despite my inclusion, I continue to believe polling has become more difficult even though the technology has improved. Some think pollsters that do live interviews get better results, but automated polls are less expensive, allowing a larger sample for the same cost. It's been reported that the response rate for polls is about 8%, down from 35% a decade or two ago. Not sure anyone knows if non-responders break evenly all the time, but it is certainly possible that curmudgeonly conservatives or media-suspicious Republicans are less cooperative than others.
EDIT: The problems with the accuracy of the 2000 & 2004 exit polls were at least partially attributed to the greater number of GOP non-responders, IIRC.
Yikes. You might want to read up on household income and redo your math.
That's not why "the rich" was in quotes.
False.
Also false.
You believe current government spending is sustainable?
They don't really exist, as liberals use the term. Just because one is in the highest tax bracket, or makes $200K per year, or $250K per year, does not necessarily mean that one is rich. Far from it, in many cases. The _real_ "rich" are those who have mansions and fancy cars and yachts. There are relatively few of those. And they are paying more than their fair share of taxes.
The highest tax bracket starts at $388,000, which puts them in the top 1%. If you make more than 99% of the country, you're rich, or that word has no meaning. And yes, I understand the difference between wealth and income, but since we tax income and not wealth, what are you going to do?
Over what time horizon? Are we going to get in some odd game of pretending that forecasts out 10, 20, or 30 years out are meaningful?
For the short term, next 4 years, then yes it is completely sustainable.
According to you, but you think pretty much any amount of money paid in taxes is more than one's fair share. So forgive me if I am not willing to accept this assertion.
Just turned it on. Ryan accuses everyone of misquoting Romney and takes some anecdotes to support the caring Romney. Pokes fun at the VP for being Mr. Foot-in-Mouth.
But, back to baseball.
Here's an article that claims the in 2009, top 1% of income earners made 17% of the nation's income, and paid 37% of the individual income taxes.
90% of the work in my firm could be done anywhere in the world.
Biden smirking might not be an effective tactic.
And? I don't think that is their fair share, to be blunt. With how the progressive tax system is structured the wealthy are supposed to pay more. That is a feature. Things like the EITC mean that the lower levels pay no or reduced income taxes (and of course these "Poor Rich folks and their tax burden articles always talk about federal income tax, rarely payroll or other taxes - many of which are very regressive) for a reason.
Once this happens then yes everyone else is going to pay more. I happen to believe in diminishing marginal returns - put simply rich peoples' money is not as valuable to the rich as poorer peoples' money is to them. Thus if you need revenue it is best to take it from those who got it and will miss it the least - the rich.
As Warren Buffet said, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." New York Times, November 26, 2006.
However I am more than willing to have the upper middle class pay more also. I am comfortably in the top 5% of wage earners (not anywhere near that in wealth though sadly - I blame my kids, the damn parasites*) and so I am signing up to pay more. I am willing to go back to the dark ages of the 1990 level repressive tax rates (or even - gasp - higher).
* I recently was talking about my boys - using pretty close to that exact phrase - when the younger boy, sitting nearby, without looking up from his book, announced "you're welcome". Sarcasm, nature or nurture?
Never happen. You make a million plus per year and you would flee NYC because you have to pay more in taxes? I'll believe it when I see it.
I feel like you should be a rich person before you make this judgment. One time when my grandma was still around, we were talking about how her friend, who was in her early 90's, had been given only a couple of years to live. I said something about she had lived a full life. My grandma snarled at me and blurted "When you're 91, dying at 93 is damned terrifying."
I agree. That's why I posted it.
Oh no the hedge fund managers would move to Singapore! You speak as if a few percentage points would cause them all to go Gault. First of all I don't believe it(why have they not already fled the terrible rates they are seeing - they could be paying less right now by your theory). I am also not convinced we are helpless in the face of the wealthy. As I asked last time, why are they fighting so hard against all these taxes if it was so painless and easy to avoid them.
Yes if we went to 90% taxes and the rest of the world was at 30% there would be issues, but no one is suggesting that.
You don't need to sign up. You can pay more in taxes anytime you want. And with a 1040X, you can do it in hindsight.
I don't - I'm smack in the middle of the class who gets crushed by tax hikes, ~$200-250k in NYC.
But the Hedgies and the PE guys and the bankers? You don't think they'd take off for London or HK or Luxembourg or anywhere else? You don't think you'd see a LOT more offshoring to the Carribean if tax rates jumped? Why do you think all those finance jobs on the continent migrated to Lux in the last decade or so?
Are you claiming their is no diminishing marginal return to money? Really? There is a diminishing marginal return to almost everything, why should money be the exception.
Yes, returning their tax rates to Clinton-era tax rates (actually lower, for several reasons) is going to cause rich people to flee the country--just like they did during the Clinton years.
Uh huh.
And the group that wants to freeload shows up. Everyone able should pay a bit more. Me paying more is useless - the marginal utility of money is much higher for me than it is for the government for the amount of money I could afford to give extra. However the aggregated utility of all the money from people in my tax bracket as compared to the utility of that aggregated money going to the government is a different animal.
Because of the principle discussed upthread, where somehow, your consumption expands to fill out your income. And, because not-having doesn't FEEL as bad has having-and-then-taken-away. Take your typical NYC professional making 500k. You up his tax burden by, say, 20%, and he has to put his kids into a new school or sell his apartment - that doesn't sound like diminishing marginal #### to me.
You presume that over your arbitrary theshold, people are spending their money on toys, but that's not how it shakes out. And for the people who really are frittering away their money on jets and such, that's the money that will disappear from the country if you raise taxes.
It's a crappy side effect of globalization that taxing the ultra-rich has become much more difficult.
So, not only does everyone have to pay more taxes because you really want to but you can't do it unless everyone else does, you also get to determine how those individuals feel about that money as well?
No, you're not. Obama's plan is to extend the Bush tax cuts for income below $250K
I didn't realize London was a low rate tax haven. Anyway, I reject that argument on philosophical grounds. You can't raise taxes on the super rich because they will take their money and leave? That smells like blackmail to me.
That's impossible. If X>Y, multiplying them both by 150M doesn't change that.
I mean, in a year I'm over $250. Yippee.
And all of your income below $250K stays at the same tax rate. Yahoo.
Ah, the classic definition of where the marginal utility of money declines. Right above your own income!
So, if I buy season 2 DVDs of Game of Thrones at the store, I'm justified in loudly demanding that everyone else in the store have to buy it to, under force of government control so that I can buy it? After all, if I'm the only one buying it, the show will lose money and stop before the books are done. They'd haul me off to the loony bin.
All of your taxable income.
Mitt Romney Would Pay 0.82 Percent in Taxes Under Paul Ryan's Plan
Relative to the rest of the continent, it was - perhaps not w/r/t personal taxes, but with regard to a total regulatory and tax burden. That's why it became a financial capital.
It's not blackmail - its a prisoners dilemma. And while you may have a philosophical objection, you also have a pragmatic problem. 30 years ago, moving away was far less of an option than in an era with Skype and access to American culture via the internet all over the world and huge expat populations in places like Singapore and HK and Dubai etc. There's still a cost to being an expat, but it is a cost, and at some point the cost of staying will exceed the cost of going.
Put it this way. How much money would it take for you to move your family to, say, Costa Rica. 10% increase in take-home; probably not. But what about 50%? 100%? And remember, if you're rich, one of the biggest costs for you or I associated with expat life - travel - is less of an issue b/c it doesn't scale with earnings.
They didn't leave when Clinton raised their taxes, they didn't stay because Bush cut their taxes, and they're not going to leave if Obama raises their taxes back to where Clinton had them.
The whole "argument" is full of stuff.
Wealthy people are fleeing the high-tax Northeast for the no- or low-tax South, and high-tax California for no- or low-tax Texas and Southwest, like crazy.
And the marginal gain of that extra consumption also decreases. Really, no kidding, the marginal utility of money decreases like everything else.
Huh? I said I am willing to be taxed, just not willing to give my money to the government. Because ...
Well snapper is wrong - not about the math though.
If I give $x to the government what is that marginal increase in revenue worth to the government? The answer is almost nothing, because it is the proverbial drop in the bucket. It is worth much more to me, largely because it is a much much much higher hit to me than increase for the government.
However if the tax rate for everyone in my tax rate gets raised then each individual gets the same hit I got when I volunteered my money. The government however now gets as additional revenue not just my drop, but everyone else's drops and now the bucket is full.
Besides I really don't want everyone else (who can afford more, like me) to be freeloading, so why should I give. This is the exact same logic we discussed before in the health care debate. For some reason conservatives think telling me I should donate money instead of being taxed is devastating. It isn't.
What on earth does this have to do with taxation or diminishing marginal utility?
Insanely rambling that I can't do something I want to do unless everybody else is forced to as well.
You want to pay higher taxes? Fine. You don't want to pay higher taxes? Fine. You want to suggest that tax rates go up? Fine. Argue that you desperately want to pay higher taxes but you can't reach your dreams until everybody else has to pay higher taxes as well? That's something a psychopath would suggest.
If I give $x to the government what is that marginal increase in revenue worth to the government? The answer is almost nothing, because it is the proverbial drop in the bucket. It is worth much more to me, largely because it is a much much much higher hit to me than increase for the government.
However if the tax rate for everyone in my tax rate gets raised then each individual gets the same hit I got when I volunteered my money. The government however now gets as additional revenue not just my drop, but everyone else's drops and now the bucket is full.
Besides I really don't want everyone else (who can afford more, like me) to be freeloading, so why should I give. This is the exact same logic we discussed before in the health care debate. For some reason conservatives think telling me I should donate money instead of being taxed is devastating. It isn't.
No. Because each of those people value their infinitesimal amount just like you do.
If the money is worth X to the gov't, and X+1 to you, it's the same for everyone else too. So, in total the gov't gets 150M(X) and people suffer a loss of 150M(X+1).
Do you talk like that in real life, or just on the internet? BM's position is a logical one. You are free to disagree, but don't pretend it's a psychotic position, because it isn't and I'm pretty sure you know that.
If they didn't do it that way people would be playing games to get just below a bracket. If the rate for 250K and below was 29%, and the rate for above 250K was 30%, if you earn 251K you actually have less take home pay than 250K. Which is certainly ridiculous. That's why the first whatever K is the same for everyone.
And BM is willing to take the X+1 hit, provided the government gets 150M(x). It's not that difficult a concept.
Desperately? Reach my dreams?
How about I want to suggest tax rates go up. And I am tired of the "Why don't you just give the money if you want tax rates to go up" game.
Sure, but the other 150M people don't have to agree, and WILL be worse off.
I thought Biden was damn near pitch perfect and I thought Ryan had a bad night... To be fair, I think Ryan is a bit like Obama in that he's just not a very good debater. Like Obama, he's better with soliloquies - or press conferences where he can just talk and not have to worry about responding or challenging the other person debating.
Too bad that it probably doesn't really help Team Blue much, if at all - but still... a good night for the incumbent ticket and probably nothing here to keep the challenger momentum going.
Does this maybe stop the Obama drift? Hopefully... I doubt it gains any of the lost ground back, but maybe it freezes the numbers.
I do hope that Obama watches Biden's tape in preparation for the next debate - in fact, forget Kerry as the debate prep opponent - let Biden debate him.
Calling Biden's performance obnoxious would be an insult to regular obnoxious people.
So do I. Romney will be at 55 percent by next Thursday.
Oh sure state my position much better than I did in fewer words. Can we go back to Black Death talk ;)
Um, I'm pretty sure ~ half of them would, or it will never happen.
Assuming they derive no direct or indirect benefit from the additional revenue the government gets. A big assumption. That aside, too bad, so sad. That's how a democracy works. I'm a hell of a lot worse off because Bush invaded Iraq. Where can I go to be made whole?
We do understand it. It still sucks to pay 50% of each marginal dollar you earn.
The snap polls seem to heartily disagree -- and watching both liberal and conservative twitter feeds, I'm getting a heck of a lot more "#### yeah!" from the left a good amount "The ref is hosing us!" from the right.
CNBC's snap poll has Ryan winning, 56 to 36.
Never happen. You make a million plus per year and you would flee NYC because you have to pay more in taxes? I'll believe it when I see it.
You won't necessarily move if you make $1 million a year. But if you make $50 million a year you might. Or if you make $1 million and your boss moves the firm because he makes $50 million a year, you either have to move to Singapore or look for a new job.
Forutnately, it's 30% -- you don't even have to pay payroll taxes on it, which happens to all the dollars under it.
No, it's 50%. I pay state and city too.
Nonsense. Just because Ryan voted against the stimulus doesn't mean that his district was preempted from receiving stimulus funds, any more than Zoe Lofgren voting against the Iraq war meant that soldiers from her district didn't have to go and fight.
Ha! You mean, those click polls on the website that even have a term called "freeping"?
Seriously?
And you can deduct your state taxes at least from your Fed. So what it the real number?
I guess you're ignoring the part where Biden pointed out that Ryan used the phrase "to create jobs" as a reason to get the stimulus money.
But...but...we were told that the stimulus didn't create jobs! The Republicans insisted!
Take it up with your state and city government... or -- as I think the GOP would say to people who don't want their states to allow abortion or people who live in a state without Romneycare -- you can move... Heck -- if you're earning 250K, I imagine it's even easier for you to move to another state and city.
So, just so I have this straight. Voting against the stimulus and still taking the money = OK, but wanting tax rates to go up without volunteering you own money first = hypocrisy. Do I have that right?
I know my pop's marginal tax rate is near 50%, all in, all sorts of taxes and deductions and whatnot. Mine is closer to 40% (and will go up as I hit higher brackets). We use the same accountant, so maybe he's screwing up both our taxes. My pop's joke (most recently heard at the Rosh Hashanah dinner table) is "I work till May for the government, and you work till April".
No, you don't. You claimed you and your $200K income would be "crushed" by the tax increase that wouldn't even affect you. Then you claimed that it would crush you in a few years when you are making $250K, when it would barely affect you. And this is all after you squealed about "typical" guys making $500K seeing their tax burdens increase by 20%.
Well, gross comp is lower in, e.g., Texas, so take home is pretty close in NY and Texas for associate attorneys. Cost of living in TX is much lower, obviously, but I have a unique setup so my cost of living in NYC is about $30k lower than it normally would be.
what's the Cliff Notes on those foreign embassy attacks at this point, re the extent to which that dopey film caused the fervor?
#independentvoter
#iamworkingtoohardtokeepupwiththisstuff
This is odd. You agreed with me when I made this same point about the stimulus a couple months ago.
High under Clinton was 39.6%. Unless state and city are also progressive in your locale they aren't relevant to the discussion.
And yes, there have been many stories about people earning JUST over 250K and their concerns, so I guess the issue isn't really understood by everyone.
Not a few years - next year. And it does "crush" me, IMO. I'm paying nearly 50% of each marginal dollar. Your mileage might vary, but that's oppresive.
And also,
Lassus, not sure if you meant Greg (UK) or me as I think we may both be professional historians. I study 19th century and have no deep thoughts on the Black Death. It's clear that a series of things changed in England and in Europe creating all kinds of demographic pressures, but someone better versed than me would need to sort out the crucial from the chaff.
Citation needed.
YouTube had nothing to do with Benghazi. Even Obama and the State Dept. are admitting this now.
***
???
You don't know how to find CNBC?
You mean the internet poll that goes out of its way to warn stupid people that it's "Not a Scientific Survey?"
There's no poll there. Only a online survey.
OK, where are all these "scientific" polls showing a Biden win, as Zonk claimed?
Citing this as if it had meaning is far more obnoxious.
Getting taxed an additional 3% ONLY on whatever small sum you make over $250K next year is not going to crush you.
You're going to make $260K? Yeah, that extra $300 is just murderous.
This one, for one...
The MOE on such polls is through the roof, of course -- and no margin measures how much it matters -- but at least it's a random sample rather than a contest to see which side has more people willing to keep clicking a radial button, clear their cookies, rinse, and repeat.
That's right. I agree both are OK. You and others think the former is fine and the latter is not. That's the difference.
I suppose 40 is nearly 50.
Sooo... in other words...
You're not being "crushed" right now because you're making, let's say, 125K after taxes... but you will be next year because you're making, let's say, 130K after taxes, instead of the $130,400?
Marginal tax rates crush marginal efforts to earn marginal income. I think that paying over 40% of my gross comp and nearly 50% of marginal dollars is oppressive. You disagree. What's your tax rate?
That said, I thought Biden was terrific but that the chief benefit will be to energize the Democratic base. Ryan presented his side well, even if Biden refuted him on substance more than a few times, and vindicated his selection.
Overall, I'd give Biden an A-/B+ and Ryan a B+/B, and Raddatz a solid A to Jim Lehrer's D-. I'm still watching the game and have no idea what the commentators are saying. There's plenty of time for that tomorrow after the two games are over.
One last thought: Why didn't the ####### Yankees take out a life insurance policy on A-Rod and then make a phone call before the postseason began?
Well, unless you are arguing that you should little or no tax on extra income, I don't get your point. If you are currently paying $400 in taxes for every extra thousand you make, will paying $440 instead "crush" your efforts?
I can't believe people weren't watching baseball instead. What is wrong with you people! Verlander's pitching!
Among undecided voters.
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