Forum Post: How many here would support a tax increase on the richest 0.1% of the country if it meant lower taxes and better services for the rest of us?
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 6, 2011, 11:51 p.m. EST by ARod1993
(2420)
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Discuss.
I think people would be more content with their current taxes if the top 0.1% paid more, or loop holes were closed.
That's the idea; I laid out a more complete proposal with a more articulate rationale on the link here: http://www.themultitude.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=585&p=3774
A really excellent article you penned there. I also enjoy the dialogue between Geeonomics and you, but he clearly makes a case based on certain assumptions, (such as reinvestment of gains).
Still, the civility is commendable.
Thank you.
No problem; I believe that while slinging mud may get you ahead in a popularity contest, at the end of the day it's the policies we endorse that matter and it's better to try and focus on policy than to stand around and fight. Geekonomics seems to me to be a pretty nice guy and quite intelligent, just with an overly rosy view of the private sector.
Btw....loved the article, I think you will find we have much thought in common...
Incidentally, the article is now up on the OWS forums here: http://occupywallst.org/forum/a-prescription-for-uncle-sam/
That is a very thoughtful and articulate post, I would recommend it to others, particularly those on the border.
Thanks! The only reason it's not here is because it ran over the word limit and there was too much there for me to be able to figure out a means of pruning it down to fit.
Let me just get this out of the way so the libertarians can move along:
Taxation is theft and society is a parasite.
That made me laugh out loud!
Thanks for the giggle :)
Glad to be of service :)
Raising taxes for the super rich is a bandage fix. I'm for it, but as we keep pushing for economic growth, we'll keep depleting the resources and endanger our very survival. We will have to become sustainable. And that's not possible in a society that keeps pushing for profit.
It should still be doable if we develop different standards of efficiency and go for a New Deal-style model of regulated capitalism; moving toward full environmental stability is going to require massive investment in public works and a great deal of work on the part of the EPA, among other things. However, we built the interstate highway system within about thirty years and we put a man on the moon in 1969; I firmly believe that a system based on a second, updated New Deal consensus would be able to take on the upcoming challenges and make sustainability work.
A tax increase for the rich is not enough to correct the problems with our deficit. However, the deficit should be the responsibility of the government and the elite that funded them so they could be elected.
It is their attitude that they can spend as much money as they want to and leave it for future generations to pay for by the middle and lower class in taxes. They are the ones that reap the benefits of changing laws and over spending that created our deficit.
It is greed and corruption that desired power by our leaders and the elite that got us in this mess so it belongs to them to fix it by themselves to reduce the deficit. This is the accountability that the masses should demand of our system for their actions.
top 10% earns $112,000 AGI per annum top 5% earns $166,000 top 1% earns $344,000 source national taxpayers union--www.ntu.org
AGI is adjusted gross income; it is the amount taxable--it is the amount left after deductions that, you the taxpayer, pay for them,,, such as business expenses, like their car, rent, fancy dinners to court customers, etc....
The US government taxes income, not wealth.
True, but once you treat things like long-term capital gains (with the exception of pensions and 401(k)s) as income and add back in the estate tax the difference becomes mostly one of semantics rather than of actual substance.
The answer is simple; everybody, except if your the .1%, a troll, a sock puppet, or just really, really, stupid.
I support tax increase on the rich!
What you propose is not likely.
Everyone will have the honor to contribute.
We are at about 15 trillion in debt.
The honor to contribute
This is what so many people seem to have such a hard time understanding; contributing to something bigger than you are and putting time and money into your country shouldn't be onerous unless it's ridiculous. For me, the knowledge that my tax dollars are going to things that this country needs is enough so that even if I don't like the amount I'm paying or the efficiency with which it's used I'd still proudly pay. I mean, I'd grumble here and there, but grumbling about taxes is a lot like grumbling about finals; nobody wants to take them but they're a part of the package. I'd rather be freaking out about finals at MIT than coasting through Bronx Community College.
IF the nation is honorable, and behaves honorably, - if it meets both its commitments and its lofty ideals - then there is no reason why its citizens will not feel honored in its support.
But if there is corruption . . .
Then our job is to fight the corruption with everything we have while continuing to support the nation, not merely use it as an excuse to see how much we can wring out of the government while fighting like a dog when we're asked to put anything in.
exactly - and so . . .
hey ho!
hey ho!
the repelican party has got to go!
I agree with you completely there; the only solutions I've seen them put forth involve further deregulation, further outsourcing, no more taxes for the wealthy, and so on. In effect the Republican policies as they're emerging now would allow corporations and the wealthy to become everything they claim the poor are when they want to cut welfare.
exactly
I think, in looking at both their advocacy, and the way they have approached matters of policy this year - the budget debate for example - we are at a critical point, a crossroads.
We either bring this nonsense to a halt now, or risk losing everything to the corporate structure and its series of alliances which will maintain division among the public as they grapple with the reality of a finite economy.
We had, what - ten storms that cost over one billion each, just this year?
It's likely to get worse.
We are not positioned to meet that challenge.
I would agree, and that's why I'm here so often. I watched the debt ceiling crisis that didn't have to happen and only happened because the Tea Party thought it would be fun to make Obama's life harder than it has to be. I'm watching our industry go to crap, our financial sector making glorified bets on mortgages it never should have sold in the first place, and our wealthy deciding that they owe nothing to the system that made them, and then when it all collapsese those who can afford it least are first under the bus. This has to stop.
yes
Yes. They haven't been paying their fair share for the past 10 years. Can we also request that their money is removed from our political system so that we all have an equal say in how our government is run?
Absolutely, and again that should have been dealt with in the Supreme Court's response to Buckley v. Valeo rather than exacerbated in Citizens United.
Have you heard of Representative Ted Deutch's "Occupied Amendment?" It is a start at getting money out of politics and it was inspired by OWS:
http://www.theoccupiedamendment.org/
There is also www.getmoneyout.org
That's quite heartening to know and I want to see it Deutsch's amendment go places. Even if it doesn't get passed it will at least make completely clear to the people which elected officials are on our side and which ones aren't.
Everyone would support that, the middle class is just as greedy as anyone else. We try to give away too much and aren't willing to pay for it. Everyone wants their free stuff and they want someone else to pay for it.
Of course they should. Party is over.
The top of the pile should have been taught the art of giving back, with gratitude, to the country that allowed them to gain wealth in the first place. They never learned the practice of determining when enough is enough. Once people reach a level of success then they should begin to feel an obligation to the rest of this country. That ability to feel that they are a part of a greater system beyond themselves or their private club has been lost to many of these people. I see it as a sort of sociopathic behavior.
I would suggest a system, which was leaderless...I would suggest a taxation system, which was COMPLETELY adjustable, and completely democratically distributed.
This is what I say....
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/50500650/yourtopia-your%20official%20final%20beginning.pdf
Heres what others say....
http://occupywallst.org/forum/im-here-to-listen-what-is-it-you-want-to-be-heard/#comment-464830
Heres something you could do about it.... right now....FREE! 2 SECONDS! EASY!
http://occupywallst.org/forum/something-that-you-can-do-right-now-from-where-you/
I believe in a progressive but not punishing tax rate and that everyone has to pay something but if you make less money you have a lower tax rate. I believe anything above 45% is too harsh and anything below 5% too soft.
Effective rates, right? Because we had 91% top marginal rates under Eisenhower, but the effective rate at the top was <40% (vs. <20% now).
Of course, so that probably calls for a simplified tax code
To a certain degree, yes, but we do need to be careful not to fall into the flat tax trap or similar fallacies. We want something simple enough to be easily understood, thorough enough that it's a bitch to evade, and nuanced enough to handle pretty much everyone's taxes appropriately. I would like to see something that fits all of these criteria, but if that's not possible I'll sacrifice simplicity for thoroughness and nuance.
Agreed, but it should at least be a goal
It should be part of our strategy, and we should try to cut unnecessary verbal flourishes and redundancies where possible.
I hope so; I figure that most people forget about deductions and money moving and just assume that the nominal rate is the effective rate.
Sounds like a start. What I'm curious about, though, is why 45% is your limit when it started out at twice that. Incidentally (forgive me if you already knew this) but the way income tax is applied here a marginal tax rate of X% does not actually mean X% of your check goes to the government. If appended to the current system of brackets we have, what I suggested is not so bad. Say for instance that you were making $1.5 million per year. Based on what I proposed (45% from $250K-$500K, 55% from $500K-$1M, and 65% above $1M), your income tax would be:
$850 on the first $8500
$3900 on the next $26,000
$12,275 on the next $49,100
$25,424 on the next $90,800
$25,300 on the next $75,600
$112,500 on the next $250,000
$275,000 on the next $500,000
$325,000 on the next $500,000
That totals to $780,429 or just over 52% of your paycheck assuming no deductions.
Essentially the top bracket rate is the theoretical maximum of your average tax rate; as you earn more and more the percentage of your paycheck going to the government creeps toward the top bracket rate but can neither exactly equal it nor pass it. In reality, the total percentage of your paycheck that goes to taxes doesn't hit 55% until you're bringing home $1,845,710 each year and it doesn't hit 60% until you're making $3,691,420. It doesn't hit 62.5% until you're making well over $7 million every year, and it cannot by definition reach 65%.
I believe it should never exceed 50%, maybe if you're making 3 billion a year, but not if you're only making 1 million.
Incidentally, a nominal rate topping out at 65% would most likely lead to an effective rate somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-45% at most. Considering that the deduction phase-out I proposed along with this doesn't kick in until $5M per year the guy making a couple of million would in fact be paying closer to 35-38% effective rate.
I understand, what I mean is that the effective rate should not exceed 50%
That's fair for now; let's try what I'm proposing and see how well it works.
Go for it
I would support a government which concerned itself only with protecting individual rights and did not violate them in order to fund itself. I would support a reformation of tax law such that only those things which are not required for human life and which only government can provide are taxed.
Define individual rights for me and then we'll talk.
A right is an aspect of life required by the type of life it pertains to. For instance, we have the "right to life". This is the right to provide for our own survival. It is not the right to demand that someone else provide for our survival nor is it the 'right to be alive'. How are we to provide for our own survival? By using our minds to evaluate reality and take actions in accordance with what we observe while bearing in mind that we may not violate the rights of others. In order to do this, we require the corollary right of liberty, which is the right to perform the above-mentioned activities. Given that a driving factor in human life is the pursuit of happiness, that right is also one held by all human beings. The Declaration of independence (and the constitution) do not grant these rights. Those documents merely recognize that they exist (the Declaration of Independence moreso than the constitution).
Why do you choose to differentiate between the right to life and the right to be alive. I'm not confused about your use of semantics, I'm disputing the validity of your differentiation. What would you have us do with our poor, both generational and newly minted, who by no fault of their own are no longer in a position to provide for themselves? I'd like you to take a look at the discussion I had with Tinhorm below.
I differentiate between the right to provide for one's own life and the right to be alive because one either is alive or is not. One remains alive either by working to support his own life or depending on the work of others. If one does not work to support his own life (and has not accumulated any savings with which to do so) he is dependent on charity or theft. He has no right to the charity of others, for others have a right to all that they have produced. Besides, a "right" to the work of others destroys the concept of charity. If he turns to theft, he violates the rights of others. A 'right to be alive' would grant to any person who did not or was not able to support his own life the legitimate authority to demand the products of the effort of others, denying them their own rights. I believe you will find the answer to your question about the old and the very young in my above statements.
theft is wrong
Nope. It wouldn't work out until the government were cleaned up and made to run like a for profit company. Otherwise it would just end up a net increase in cost for the same shit service.
If you take a look at what I advocated over on TheMultitude (which is where the idea behind this post comes from) I didn't just talk about hiking taxes alone. I talked about coupling tax hikes on the top few earners with serious reassessments of how much our government is spending on things like no-bid defense contracts that generally always turn into boondoggles. Here's the link for reference; I couldn't copy and paste the original post here because it exceeds the character limit. http://www.themultitude.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=585&p=3774
Hey I just read it. I just don't think you take into account that the top earners are actually divided into two groups:Capitalist class and working wealthy. Most of the people actually working on wall street? Usually working 50-80h per week for their income and they already pay fully half of their income to state/federal taxes. People like Warren buffet and such pay a smaller percentage (but overall higher gross amount) because they make their money on capital gains, which are actually taxed lower, taxes can be offset by capital losses, and tax burdens can be deferred to future years. Raising taxes on the capitalist class would probably not affect them, the working wealthy would likely go nuts and find a lower paying (and less stressful) job to offset the high amount of taxes.
Raising taxes sounds well and good, but everybody forgets that the easiest way to avoid paying taxes is to just exit the labor force. I did it. I left the US at the start of the crisis. Even paying my US taxes (which is criminal bullshit that I owe them as a non-resident) I still take home around 45,000$ more per year than peers back home.
I can think of a couple of things to deal with that, beginning with a phase-out of itemized deductions starting at personal income above $5M or so (beyond the level of the working wealthy) and then on top of that raise both sets of capital gains taxes so that short-term capital gains in a given bracket are taxed at 10% more than regular income from that bracket and long-term capital gains are taxed the same as income (with special exceptions for college savings, pensions, and IRA/401(k)-type retirement accounts). The other big thing to remember is that due to deductions the effective tax rate tends to be 50-66% of the nominal tax rate, so it wouldn't be as hard on the working wealthy as it seems.
Do you have sources to back that up? I don't think you are lying, but I have seen the tax statements of people 50k/month and up and the taxes are pretty damn high.
Also deductions are not all bad. You deduct from your income money you spent already. Do you really think giving money to the federal government is more beneficial to society than direct donations to charities which are helping out in communities? Is it better to give the federal government more money to create jobs than just invest in something that directly creates them?
If you cut the country up by percentiles and look at the mean percentage of AGI (adjusted gross income) paid out in federal income taxes the highest it goes is a little over 24%, despite the top bracket being at 38% and the bracket below it being about 33%. This means that generally speaking you're looking at an effective tax rate of 63-72% of the nominal tax rate as far as all things are concerned and because of that a 65% top bracket would most likely result in 41-46% effective tax rates for most of the top earners overall, and slightly less than that for the working wealthy.
As far as deductions are concerned, to a certain extent it's a good idea to allow donations to charities and the like be made tax deductible, but unless those deductions are strictly regulated you wind up with a cottage industry of "charities" that don't actually do anything and may in fact have unacceptably close ties to their main donors whose purpose is to allow the wealthy to hide their money from the tax man.
As far as investment in job creation, that's exactly what isn't happening right now. The market just glutted on stupid amounts of poorly issued credit that a whole lot of people weren't able to make good on. A lot of people got burned, and the end result of this is that financing and investment is hard to find. Given this situation, Uncle Sam is in a unique position to step in and help bolster the economy by beginning to invest, but he can't do that when his revenue stream isn't even covering his regular bills half the time.
Only if it includes mandatory employment for those that have been feeding off of the rest of us for the last few years. Also, there would have to be a clause in there that states that they cannot quit there job and must perform. If they are fired for not doing there job, they are not entitled to any sort of assistance, then maybe. Also, you have to be careful how you intened to impose the tax on the 1% that could very well be a double edged sword if not done correctly.
How would you handle mandatory employment? What you seem to be suggesting here is more of a form of indentured servitude where the state holds your contract. What I'd rather do is start pushing for national infrastructure programs that by nature and definition require a mix of skilled and unskilled labor and pay a minimum of $15-$20 per hour (in essence, the WPA and the CCC all over again) so that the only people receiving government assistance checks would be those on disability who are physically incapable of working.
That is exactly what I am talking about. You expressed it much better than I did. If in fact we could have actually produced all of the "Shovel Ready" jobs we were told about that don't really exist, unemployment might not be where it is today.
OK, that's definitely reasonable and that's something I can get behind. The best part is that if you do it that way then there should be no real need to force people to work or cut off aid to the unemployed, because $15-20 per hour is $600-800 per week per person working, which comes out to a minimum of $30-40K per year per employed household member. That's enough to maintain a single-income household firmly in the working class and a double-income household in the middle class, and way more than current government assistance benefits offer. Even the greediest bastard out there would see the value in this and go to work.
Unfortunatly, you have to take into consideration the human factor which would make that very difficult to succeed. Based on our current social programs, it is way to easy for someone to just decide to sit at home and play X-Box because they know that they will get taken care of. I would like to think that that is not most Americans but when I read stories like the one the other day of the woman living in a 2.5 million dollor home and collecting food stamps and disability that she should have never gotten for the last 10 years, it makes it hard to think there arent thousands more out there doing the same thing.
Isn't it wonderful that one person (or couple) who commits fraud is the center piece for the concept that thousands of others are also committing fraud?
There is never a news item about someone like a friend of mine who could easily qualify for SSI, but won't even apply because he'd rather work (when he can find it). Or the mother who is raising her children alone because the option of a father remaining in the household made them ineligible for any help, yet with both of them working there wasn't enough to maintain even a minimalistic lifestyle.
For each one who is committing fraud, there are at least 10 (more likely 1000) who honestly need the help, there are at least 10 (more likely 1000) who struggle refusing help...
We don't hear of those people, or at least not very damned often...but we do hear of the ones who are abusing the system, who commit fraud and then we begin to get paranoid, thinking that where there is one, there are 10's of thousands.
Are you aware that to receive aid there are requirements to seek employment? That some states have training programs? That too many states do not?
Instead of putting so much thought and effort into a 'grifter' (fraud), try putting some thought and effort into those we never hear about. The ones deserving of that thought and effort.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head; the way things work right now it tends to be more about ratings than anything else, and the best formula for quick ratings is a shocking scandal that acts to confirm viewers' inherent stereotypes and biases. This works because the viewer gets to have his cake and eat it too; he gets all the trainwreck titillation but without the discomfort that comes from questioning your beliefs and principles. Ever since Reagan promulgated the story of the welfare queen and large numbers of people started buying into it, the media started going out of its way to find instances correlating to that story to capitalize on the ratings boosts and that's why it's such a popular headline.
As far as the work requirements, you're completely right. I actually wasn't completely sure how welfare was or was not administered until this semester when I had a paper due on voter apathy. In the process of doing the research for that, I found a paper correlating voter apathy with stringency of post-PRWORA welfare requirements and it had some interesting information on all the hoops one has to jump through to get that check in the mail.
You can't honestly believe that thousands of people in our country are not committing fraud when it comes to welfare and food stamps. It is proven all the time. It is sad that the ones who actually need the assistance are usually the ones who have the hardest time getting it and the ones who are defrauding the government usually get it pretty easily. The fact still remains, that undoubtedly thousands out there are doing the exact same thing that woman was doing and have contributed greatly to the economic rapeing of our country.
I don't have to believe it, I know it.
I spent three years helping elderly apply for benefits, I helped women who's husbands had left them with nothing but debt and kids to raise.
I also spent some time going over records and actually visiting homes to insure that the recipients of benefits weren't 'cheating the system'.
I learned that over 95% of those reported had done nothing wrong and those who were doing the reporting were doing so out of spite. Funny thing about that last 5%, the ones that had done something wrong...they weren't living in an expensive house, they had received gifts they neglected to report. Yeah, if a beneficiary receives $10,$15, $20 dollars it's supposed to be reported.
Yep, real criminals, committing fraud because of a gift.
Instead of judging people you have never met and are never likely to, try some real research instead. Check out the county you live in and ask them what percentage of welfare fraud occurred in the past year.
If you think this is stuff I am making up, my wife has worked for our States Department of Social Services for over 10 years now. I hear about it all the time. It is much more common than you are letting on and in most cases, it is someone who by no means should be getting any assistance.
I don't think you are and I know I am not, however, the differences have much to do with location. I gained my experience in rural America, where ethics are a bit different, not to mention general attitudes of the people.
Shouldn't it be considered that the 'gifting agency' does not check the circumstances of the applicant?
Over all, there is less fraud happening than some would have you or I believe...at least not fraud on the grand scale demonstrated by the lady in the 2+million dollar house, but perhaps fraud on the scale of $10-$50 dollars in income not reported happening more often than I care to think.
That is exactly the problem. Most of the Social Services are not staffed appropriatly to check the circumstances of every applicant. When you have 10 to 20 Case workers for more than 20,000 applications a year it is an impossible task for them to achieve.
So now we've arrived at the crux of the problem. Where I used to live there was cross agency cooperation, police, county health etc...perhaps things need to be more on a local level...then again once funds are endorsed and delivered, there are lots of ways to bleed them off...fraud doesn't just occur at the lowest levels.
No doubt fraud is everywhere money is. They have cross coop as well but between CPS, Childrens programs and law enforcement the same problem of under staffing is the same. None of them really have time to pick up any slack for the others (as much as they would most likely want to).
As I said previously, the fraud that occurs is usually small, a few dollars here or there. It's the large scale fraud that makes the headlines and suddenly there is a call for stricter enforcement on all, or making it more difficult for those in need to obtain aid.
What I found odd about the particular case of the $2+million dollar house, is that the address should have been a pretty big give away. You don't generally find someone in need in an upscale neighborhood.
What I'd rather we do then is begin looking at enforcement and prosecution of welfare fraud cases rather than simply adding additional hoops to the process of obtaining benefits; if you just make it harder to get then what's going to happen is that you'll drive off those who actually need the money and the fraudsters will just find a guy to bribe or an arm to twist or a loophole to exploit and the percentage of fraudsters on welfare will keep going up.
Most states will have links on their official websites explaining how you can report entitlement fraud. Unfortunately, confidentiality rules usually limit you from following up with cases so you don't really know how effective you are. That being said, I still report a few people every year and would encourage others to do the same. There are so many ways that people abuse the system without actually break rules though.
No doubt enforcement is the issue and also the answer to other issues. If they would actually hire enough people to handle the case loads, the ability to adequatly investigate claims would exist. Currently, most state and federal social services staffs are severly undermaned which feeds into the ability to make a claim and get approved. I would be willing to bet that I could get assistance fairly easily when my family income is over 100k a year.
How exactly would you be able to do that? I remember my junior year of high school when my dad wound up on strike for eleven months and then laid off my mom had to go in and get Food Stamps to keep us off the street; the process was a three-ring circus that seemed mostly designed to humiliate the assistance-seekers. Rather than going through all that nonsense it would be better to just do a decent background check and only go further when something gets flagged. Again, I agree that properly staffing the offices responsible for dispensing the money is integral to any efforts to dispense it honestly and appropriately.
I just don't think that it would be that hard. I will use the WIC progam as an example. I know people who recieve it who make as much as I do. They are required to provide financial statments and still get approved.
The degree of negligence on the part of the government implied by your statement is just ridiculous, and I still agree with you that more staffing and better follow-up is absolutely necessary. I just believe that follow-ups and check-ins are a better way of dealing with fraud than putting people through a ton of intrusive hoops at the start.
I come from a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx bordering a fairly tough inner city area. The vibe I got from a lot of the people there wasn't so much entitlement or laziness as it was despair; they figured that society had given up on them and thus there was no point in trying to get ahead because they'd be looked down on and rebuffed no matter what they did. If you change that mentality by offering jobs like this then you change the culture of despair and failure.
Personally speaking, I do feel like the dignity of a job has an attraction all its own; my father had (and still has) issues in the way he deals with other people, and he's not exactly a stellar worker, but he held down a job when it was made easy for him to get. Once he lost that job and that mentality of despair set in, he became a much moodier, angrier, less predictable, and more volatile version of himself; he may have been unable to force himself off the couch to look for a job, but not having the dignity accorded to someone with a job was tearing him apart from the inside out. We got him an assembly-line job that's somewhat unionized, and he couldn't be happier.
It's called depression and it is a clinical condition. Look it up, might find something interesting.
I hear ya. I'm an Upstate NY Farm Boy who left the country side for the bustling city life. I have had my job for over 20 years now and it doesn't make me happy to get up and go to work every day, but I do it because I have to do something. I don't think I could survive sitting at home all day doing nothing.
Yep; it's part of the same thing that drove me to MIT and continues to drive me now. I spent four summers straight doing some form of work that took up most of my time (the summer before my freshman year of high school taking art, music, and health to get them out of the way, and the next three working 35-40 hours per week in a research internship at a local engineering college), and then I took this past summer off completely and it drove me nuts.
Flat tax is the only fair tax. So called "progressive tax" is stupid and childish.