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Original post by owl Yeah. I've been thinking about this... In a way, business owners/creators become a permanent part of a country's government. if they withdrew from the game and closed their companies a lot of people would be left out without job, a lot of taxes would not be paid anymore, etc. That certainly gives them power to twist a government's arm to do things that favors them before than the masses. I guess that's the catch on this type of capitalist_democracy. The government's main function seems to be to mask the presence of the real tyrants who own everything.

at the same time though, the government put themselves in a position where they rely on the wealthy more than the mid-income/poor. By taxing the wealthy so much they put themselves in a position where they have to keep the rich at least happy enough to stay lest they risk losing a significant part of their income. The top 1% of the earners pay 33% of the taxes; a disparity like that gives a HUGE amount of sway to that 1%.

So in short, to give the poor/middle class people more power we have to tax the shit out of them. (not srs...)

edit: I realize now that I pretty much said "but counter to that...[the exact same stuff you said]" sorry I'm sleepy.

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Original post by way2lazy2care By taxing the wealthy so much they put themselves in a position where they have to keep the rich at least happy enough to stay lest they risk losing a significant part of their income. The top 1% of the earners pay 33% of the taxes; a disparity like that gives a HUGE amount of sway to that 1%.

Barring political logic and things that start with B (eg bribery, boobies and bureaucracy), in an ideal world:

1) what does it mean for the rich to be unhappy? What does it mean to have a surplus of 1.9 billion vs 2.0 billion on your bank account by the end of the year?
2) so what if the rich are unhappy! It's not like they're going to starve or die from, uh-oh, post-9/11 cleanup related health problems (remember, we're ignoring things that start with the letter B!)

Seriously - the discussion is moot because the definition of "unhappy" is a screwed up variation of pure greed. As in: Blood Diamond Tycoon meets "Oh no! I have to be $110 million worth of less greedy each year than I otherwise could".

Like you said, way2lazy2care, the rich could just pay for everyone else's healthcare. But the bottom line is that they don't. And they never will.

This reminds me of the recent Wesley Snipes situation. I loved the guy. Money Train, Rising Sun, Blade, etc. I thought he was a kickass chap. But to get busted for tax evasion when you're making more each month than most people make in their lifetime is just stupid.

I once caulculated that I could live for 1.5-2 years for the amount of money Jennifer Lopez spends on her entourage each day. It just made me want to send her a letter and say "Hey, listen, I'll buy you a book so you can stay in for a day - just give your homies a day off and I'll be out of your hair for the next two years". If she loses sleep (eg "is unhappy") over not being able to maintain a crew of 30 around her on a daily basis year round and is forced to manage only 29, then she probably needs that book more than she could ever know.

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Original post by irreversible 1) what does it mean for the rich to be unhappy? What does it mean to have a surplus of 1.9 billion vs 2.0 billion on your bank account by the end of the year?

Most rich people don't just let their income sit there. The difference between making 1.9 billion and 2.0 billion a year could well be the difference between funding research on cold fusion or putting that money towards charities. Who do you think would more safely invest 100 million dollars; someone that makes $1 billion/year as a single person and runs a company that's profits are on the order of a billion per month, or a government that goes into debt $500 billion/year.

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2) so what if the rich are unhappy! It's not like they're going to starve or die from, uh-oh, post-9/11 cleanup related health problems (remember, we're ignoring things that start with the letter B!)

I think you missed the point. The so what is that if you make them too unhappy they will leave taking 30% of the tax income from the government with them.

that means the amount of money the government has to spend on the rest of the country per capita is down around 30%. That is hardly insignificant.

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Like you said, way2lazy2care, the rich could just pay for everyone else's healthcare. But the bottom line is that they don't. And they never will.

Bill Gates indirectly pays for the health care of 90,000 people and directly pays for a lot too.

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Original post by owl What's is really funny is that the richest man in the world would cry like a pussy for an increase of 2% in his taxes while a low-class single mother would probably just pay it.

No he wouldn't. He would just shift some more of his income into investments to cover the difference, or have his tax man get creative.

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Original post by tstrimp Quote: Original post by owl What's is really funny is that the richest man in the world would cry like a pussy for an increase of 2% in his taxes while a low-class single mother would probably just pay it. No he wouldn't. He would just shift some more of his income into investments to cover the difference, or have his tax man get creative.

I stand corrected.

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Buffett stated that he only paid 19% of his income for 2006 ($48.1 million) in total federal taxes (due to their being from dividends & capital gains), while his employees paid 33% of theirs, despite making much less money.[125] On the other hand in 2008 Berkshire Hathaway paid $1.9 billion in federal corporate income taxes on $7.5 billion in earnings (more than 26% in federal taxes alone).[126] “How can this be fair?” Buffet asked, regarding how little he pays in taxes compared to his employees. “How can this be right?” Buffet added: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”[127][128]

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Original post by owl Quote: Original post by tstrimp Quote: Original post by owl What's is really funny is that the richest man in the world would cry like a pussy for an increase of 2% in his taxes while a low-class single mother would probably just pay it. No he wouldn't. He would just shift some more of his income into investments to cover the difference, or have his tax man get creative. I stand corrected. Quote: Buffett stated that he only paid 19% of his income for 2006 ($48.1 million) in total federal taxes (due to their being from dividends & capital gains), while his employees paid 33% of theirs, despite making much less money.[125] On the other hand in 2008 Berkshire Hathaway paid $1.9 billion in federal corporate income taxes on $7.5 billion in earnings (more than 26% in federal taxes alone).[126] “How can this be fair?” Buffet asked, regarding how little he pays in taxes compared to his employees. “How can this be right?” Buffet added: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”[127][128]

Right. The vast majority of his income is from capital gains. He isn't being entirely honest about his employees paying 33% though. He is comparing his effective rate to their marginal rate. Their effective rate is much lower than 33%.

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Original post by Eelco Quote: Original post by irreversible What is the critical piece I'm missing here? Am I just stupid? Too altruistic? Please help me. My guess would be that the attempt to tie two seperate political issues together, namely, 9/11 medical issues and redistribution of wealth, is the primary thing bugging republicans. (havnt asked them, but just putting myself in their shoes) If democrats cared so much about the medical issue, youd figure they would craft a bill specifically targeted at that, funded by a proportional tax increase on everyone, rather than trying to piggyback one of their most hotly contended platform points on top of it.

You hit the nail right on the head. I feel one of the biggest problems with American government is the fact that such unrelated legislation can be lumped together into one bill. It completely obfuscates the issues and makes it extremely difficult to maintain any sort of focus or direction.

On a related note, what I would really like someone to explain to me how in any sort of reality is it ok for one person to pay a proportionately higher amount in taxes than another, simply because they have done better for themself? Why give people a reason not to continue to be active in driving the economy??

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Original post by Quasimojo On a related note, what I would really like someone to explain to me how in any sort of reality is it ok for one person to pay a proportionately higher amount in taxes than another, simply because they have done better for themself? Why give people a reason not to continue to be active in driving the economy??

Anyone who is not completely removed from reality knows quite well that neither income nor assets even remotely correspond to competence, hard work or any other trait that ought to be rewarded. Furthermore, even if that were the case, nobody is 1000, or even 100, times more hard working or competent than anyone save the completely disabled; ergo, such a discrepancy in assets or income is not defensible.

The most important reason, however, is that while the government might need, say, 30% income tax to function properly, quite a lot of people really can't afford to pay that much. If you make 2k USD/month, paying 30% rather than 20% might make the difference between being able to afford food and shelter, and not. If, on the other hand, you make 20k USD/month, paying 30% rather than 20% might make the difference between buying a new yacht this year or having to save up for another eight months. If we go even higher, the only thing impacted by paying 30% income tax rather than 20% is your ability to make even more money.

(Note that 2k, 20k, 20% and 30% are completely pulled out of my ass; I have no idea about what wages are low/normal/high/OMG in the US, but hopefully the point gets across regardless.)

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Original post by Ftn...what if Palin gets to power. She thinks world is 6k year old and final judgement is upon us?

Cite please. Seriously. If you're going to make that kind of accusation, surely you have some kind of evidence. I'm a born-again Christian, myself, and I don't believe the world is only 6k years old, so where is that coming from?

[Edited by - Quasimojo on December 17, 2010 2:57:37 PM]

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Original post by Valderman The most important reason, however, is that while the government might need, say, 30% income tax to function properly, quite a lot of people really can't afford to pay that much. If you make 2k USD/month, paying 30% rather than 20% might make the difference between being able to afford food and shelter, and not. If, on the other hand, you make 20k USD/month, paying 30% rather than 20% might make the difference between buying a new yacht this year or having to save up for another eight months. If we go even higher, the only thing impacted by paying 30% income tax rather than 20% is your ability to make even more money.

why do people assume that rich people just spend money on useless things. I won't say that some of them don't, but if I made that kind of money I'd be much more likely to either invest it or start my own companies, which would benefit a lot of people.

If I were to buy a yacht, it would probably be well after I was making enough for it to be a very very small percentage of my income unless I decided I wanted to live on the yacht instead of at a house.

My investing would be impacted severely more by a tax increase than my spending on stupid things.

Also, there are definitely people that are orders of magnitude harder working than others.