Forum Post: BLOCK - Flat tax or 999 plan.
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 16, 2011, 7:40 p.m. EST by LongLostAndLooking
(74)
from Portland, OR
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
You cannot expect people who don't earn enough money to survive to pay 10% or more of their income to taxes.
Minimum wage ($15,080 max before taxes) is not a livable wage.
"In 2010, 72.9 million American workers age 16 and over were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.8 percent of all wage and salary workers.1 Among those paid by the hour, 1.8 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 2.5 million had wages below the minimum.2 Together, these 4.4 million workers with wages at or below the Federal minimum made up 6.0 percent of all hourly-paid workers. " Source: http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2010.htm
Here's Morgan trying to do it:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yloNmBTKNIE Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gt6v01UA1c Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urGuAEGhMjA Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOSS5NODkro Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBbaBUTm5Rs
It just doesn't work.
Half of America earns less than $32,000 per year. They can't afford to pay taxes either because you can't raise a family on that when health care alone is consumes almost half of their paychecks.
Median Wage or Salary Income (dollars) All Races - $31,631 Source: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032011/perinc/new10_001.htm
Average family health insurance policy: $13,375, up 5% - http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2009-09-15-insurance-costs_N.htm
Income inequality caused by trickle down economics is the problem. The flat tax and the 999 plan only make that worse.
ABC News DESTROYS Cain's 999 plan Shows it doubles taxes on Middle Class - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/12/1025781/-ABC-News-DESTROYS-Cains-999-plan-Shows-it-doubles-taxes-on-Middle-Class
We have to get rid of trickle down economics. Any policy that continues or promotes trickle down economics is just a continuation of the very problems we've been protesting.
I live on less than $1000 a month for two people without govt help. I own my house and my truck. I also do not have health insurance at all. A lot of people live beyond their means and that is what gets them in trouble. They try to live on $30k when they only make $20k etc. If everyone would stop buying stuff on credit, the price of everything would drop by about 2/3. Every time you buy on credit you create artificial demand which artificially increases prices which makes a $1 not go as far......
.....Wait a min i just described inflation. The federal reserve doesnt increase inflation you spending money on credit and banks lending more money than they have available to lend creates inflation.
The Fed only increases the money supply in order to not run short. People over spending their earnings and banks over lending what they have available are the root of the inflation problem. If the fed doesn't print enough money and we run short. Then it will cause mass hysteria.
Cain's 999 plan is the dumbest tax plan i have ever heard...well not for rich people. Its great for rich people. If that plan were to pass their would be mass riots as soon as it went into effect. As my grandma use to say, " You can't get blood from a turnip". But they sure are trying.
I posted this before, but the Ron Paul people spammed it out.
I think we need to RAISE taxes.
Everybody’s complaining that the debt to GDP ratio is getting high, but they ignore the fact that it was around 30% higher after WWII, ending above 120% of GDP.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/US_Federal_Debt_as_Percent_of_GDP_by_President.jpg
You know how we solved that? They raised taxes on the rich.
In 1946, on every single dollar you made over $200,000 per year, you paid 91% in taxes.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html
And it worked. The debt decreased dramatically until they started lowering taxes in the 1970’s.
According to the CPI inflation calculator, $200,000 in 1946 dollars is worth $2,317,579.49 today.
http://146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
So in today’s dollars, that means roughly 91% taxes on all income above $2 Million per year.
Today the rich have a choice between paying their workers or hoarding their profits and most are choosing to hoard their profits.
Back then they had a choice between paying their workers and paying taxes. Hoarding wasn't even an option. Smart business people chose to pay their workers because a higher paycheck and better benefits gave them the choice of the best workers available.
Because of that, back then the middle class bought houses and paid them off, and could STILL afford brand new, high-tech luxuries like cars and TV's on one 40 hour a week job. The government had the money to build and fully fund schools with art departments, music departments, Olympic sized swimming pools, athletic departments, and tons of school functions. We built parks, a national highway system, bridges, an electrical grid, and airports. Plus we had a space program that sent human beings to the moon for the first time ever. All while paying down our debt in less than 30 years.
When the wealthy pay taxes, America works.
Trickle down economics is a failed theory. We need to get rid of it.
I like the idea of a flat tax. but not this flat tax, especially if you capital gains taxes aren't taxed as much, meanwhile my savings account interest is taxed as much.
Cain wants all capital gains taxes to end. On average, that means that 60% of a rich person's total income would be tax free. For some ALL of their income would be tax free because they don't get anything that qualifies as "income" for the income tax.
So 40% of 9% is what 3.6%? The rich people's taxes would drop to 3.6% while everyone else's taxes doubled or more? BS!
yeah, I didn't know that and I suspected he would support his rich cronies. My rents are retired and use their 401k (granted tax free) as their income (on top of ss) but they have that taxed as their regular income (which in theory is high then when they made the money) and therefore will get 9% just like my interest on my saving account. Meanwhile capital gains won't be considered as income? lovely, people who don't get capital gains want this? great
Our tax system is systemically flawed and rearranging the tax structure will not fix our problems. A much better system that focuses on taxing surpluses and getting rid of the income tax all together is taxing rents through Land Value Taxation
The theory of economic rent has been around for some time, but land taxation has seldom been implemented throughout history. It is well known that the factors of production are composed of land, labor and capital. Land, in the economic sense, can be explained as anything with a productive capacity that has not been created by men or women, but has value created by the community. Labor is any human energy spent , whether by the mind or through brute force, that contributes to a means of production. Capital is mainly what is spent from savings for future production. Under the current system, mainly labor and capital are taxed, while the landed elite make out like bandits with the rents that are created by the community! It is no surprise that civilizations have suffered from vast inequalities since the founding of the first governments.
What we need to fight for is a redistribution of these economic rents for the sake of the people, while at the same time reducing the tax rates on labor and capital. These rents from land are the source of all wealth and are presently held by a small number of wealthy people who will speculate and slow there productive capacity in order to increase profits.
This demand goes out to the people of OWS! If there is one thing we need to change in order to promote equality, environmental protection and job creation through increased productive capacity, this is the solution we need. Please read about economic rent and land taxation in order to fully grasp the concept. This is something proven in theory and not based on anyone's personal opinion or ideology. While we are divided on many things, it's time to come together with some real demands to benefit the majority of unrepresented individuals of the world. Lets show the top 1% that we know where their unearned wealth is coming from and that we know exactly what is needed in order to bring them back to the real world!
0% tax.
Ron Paul will eliminate income tax.
The income tax pays the interest to the privately owned Federal Reserve.
So NO Fed. NO tax
The government still needs revenue from somewhere. You can't just eliminate the income tax without an alternative. Please read my post above and research LVT. Not to be rude, but people won't take us seriously if we just say "0% income tax" without proposing an alternative based on proven theories.