Forum Post: Tax the Shit Out of the Rich
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 29, 2011, 2:21 p.m. EST by nucleus
(3291)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Tax 'em when they are alive: top income tax rates of 90%, and tax them again when they are dead with a massive estate tax. Tax corporations at the full corporate rate, eliminate deductions for lobbying and CEO perks, eliminate the foreign investment tax credit and eliminate the hiding of profits overseas to avoid taxes.
Revenue from these taxes from 1945-1979 paid off the post WWII deficit (120% of GDP), built a nationwide infrastructure and resulted in the longest period of stable growth this country has ever seen.
This would dismantle the existing plutocracy, prevent the rise of a future aristocracy, reduce corporate control of government and fund the next generation of civil infrastructure and social services including Medicare for all and a "living wage" retirement system.
To address the issue of estate taxes killing small businesses and farms, estate taxes on these could be held in abeyance until such time as the farm / business is sold. This would prevent the forced sale to pay inheritance tax.
agreed. before reagan took office the top tax rate was 50% on income above, i think (without research), $450k--the reason the oligarchs love him, was because he lowered it to 35%--that's a primary reason why he is heralded as champion of the GOP, among other things.
70% on income over $212,000 BEFORE Reagan.
50% on income over $106,000 (1982)
28% on income over $29,750 (1988)
All under Reagan. And he tripled the national debt.
it is called "starve the beast" - they have wanted just what we have now - gov't has no money so the can roll back the new deal - get rid of all that shit that helps working people - go back to the 1920's - here is wiki on the subject - "Starving the beast" is a fiscal-political strategy of some American conservatives[1][2][3] to cut taxes in order to deprive the government of revenue in a deliberate effort to create a fiscal budget crisis that would then force the federal government to reduce spending. The short and medium term effect of the strategy has been increased United States public debt rather than reduced spending.
The term "beast" refers to the government and the programs it funds, particularly social programs[4] such as welfare, Social Security, Medicare[5] and public schools. The proponents of the starve-the-beast strategy have never advocated cuts in military, weapons, or prisons spending.
That is so interesting. And, think how little wages have increased (in fact they have decreased in the last decade) since the tax rates have come down. No wonder we're in so much debt. Most Americans, today, would love to earn $29,750. How sad is that?
How can you not earn more than $30k a year? If you have any drive/initiative/work ethic that's the least amount you should be earning.
Kind of hard when half of the jobs in this country pay $26k or less. I think most people are hard-working, especially those in low paying jobs. They work their asses off for very little compensation.
[Removed]
But one must strive to better themselves,gain more knowledge and skills,and become successful.
I've heard this argument over and over and over again in this forum. Think of it this way: Capitalism is based on exploitation. That is the root of what it is. It exploits the capital and labor to produce a profit. There is no way on earth that every American can run a successful business and be rich. No way. Why? Because it is the labor of hard-working people that creates the profit. Therefore, no working class people = no profit. There is no way around this. We will never have 300 million rich people. There is just no way. There will always be a working class and they should be treated with respect, venerated for the fruits of their labor, and given a living wage.
well said - sounding a bit like marx no? well the truth sometimes is hard to take. how about this "wealth requires poverty - and the wealth of one has as it's preconditions, the poverty of others"
It doesn't have to require actual poverty.
not sure you are right - you will have trouble finding historical evidence for that point of view but no need to debate - we mostly agree
I just mean that corporations (maybe not small businesses) can certainly share the profits with their employees to lift them out of actual poverty while still maintaining significant profits.
And, I've been thinking about Adam Smith vs. Karl Marx and I do think that Marx had the superior explanation of the Labor Theory of Value. However, preferring Marx's explanation of capitalism doesn't necessarily mean one is a Marxist in the way most see Marxism as being communist.
yes, but not under the rules of today! corporations could be owned by the workers and be perfectly sustainable without making any profit - anyone who an ist of any sort makes me nervous so i agree - you can agree with marx on certain issues without being a marxist - here is chomsky on adam smith and how he is misunderstood - very informative i think -NOAM CHOMSKY: I didn't do any research at all on Smith. I just read him. There's no research. Just read it. He's pre-capitalist, a figure of the Enlightenment. What we would call capitalism he despised. People read snippets of Adam Smith, the few phrases they teach in school. Everybody reads the first paragraph of The Wealth of Nations where he talks about how wonderful the division of labor is. But not many people get to the point hundreds of pages later, where he says that division of labor will destroy human beings and turn people into creatures as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to be. And therefore in any civilized society the government is going to have to take some measures to prevent division of labor from proceeding to its limits.
He did give an argument for markets, but the argument was that under conditions of perfect liberty, markets will lead to perfect equality. That's the argument for them, because he thought that equality of condition (not just opportunity) is what you should be aiming at. It goes on and on. He gave a devastating critique of what we would call North-South policies. He was talking about England and India. He bitterly condemned the British experiments they were carrying out which were devastating India.
He also made remarks which ought to be truisms about the way states work. He pointed out that its totally senseless to talk about a nation and what we would nowadays call "national interests." He simply observed in passing, because it's so obvious, that in England, which is what he's discussing -- and it was the most democratic society of the day -- the principal architects of policy are the "merchants and manufacturers," and they make certain that their own interests are, in his words, "most peculiarly attended to," no matter what the effect on others, including the people of England who, he argued, suffered from their policies. He didn't have the data to prove it at the time, but he was probably right.
This truism was, a century later, called class analysis, but you don't have to go to Marx to find it. It's very explicit in Adam Smith. It's so obvious that any ten-year-old can see it. So he didn't make a big point of it. He just mentioned it. But that's correct. If you read through his work, he's intelligent. He's a person who was from the Enlightenment. His driving motives were the assumption that people were guided by sympathy and feelings of solidarity and the need for control of their own work, much like other Enlightenment and early Romantic thinkers. He's part of that period, the Scottish Enlightenment.
The version of him that's given today is just ridiculous. But I didn't have to any research to find this out. All you have to do is read. If you're literate, you'll find it out. I did do a little research in the way it's treated, and that's interesting. For example, the University of Chicago, the great bastion of free market economics, etc., etc., published a bicentennial edition of the hero, a scholarly edition with all the footnotes and the introduction by a Nobel Prize winner, George Stigler, a huge index, a real scholarly edition. That's the one I used. It's the best edition. The scholarly framework was very interesting, including Stigler's introduction. It's likely he never opened The Wealth of Nations. Just about everything he said about the book was completely false. I went through a bunch of examples in writing about it, in Year 501 and elsewhere.
But even more interesting in some ways was the index. Adam Smith is very well known for his advocacy of division of labor. Take a look at "division of labor" in the index and there are lots and lots of things listed. But there's one missing, namely his denunciation of division of labor, the one I just cited. That's somehow missing from the index. It goes on like this. I wouldn't call this research because it's ten minutes' work, but if you look at the scholarship, then it's interesting.
Thanks for that. You have inspired me to actually read Adam Smith, something I've never done except for some undergrad stuff, mostly excerpts. For some reason I read all of "Capital" and "The Communist Manifesto" on my own, probably because they were never assigned by my economics professors and I was curious. Funny you mention the Scottish Enlightenment, I actually did my M.A. thesis on the Scottish Enlightenment, in particular the concept of "Sympathy." People don't realize that the enlightenment really came out of Scotland. And, regarding the "nation" it would be nice to see that concept become less important. Smith was right about that. It holds us all back.
one last bit of noam for 2011 - i am for ows all the way - have been to the park in nyc a number of times - for sure we have people voting against their own interest. do you know about the creel commission - here is chomsky on the bewilderd herd.....have a good new year may 2012 be more radical!..... Chomsky paraphrasing Walter Lippmann's ideas about democracy Now there are two "functions" in a democracy: The specialized class, the responsible men, carry out the executive function, which means they do the thinking and planning and understand the common interests. Then, there is the bewildered herd, and they have a function in democracy too. Their function in a democracy, [Lippmann] said, is to be "spectators," not participants in action. But they have more of a function r than that, because it's a democracy. Occasionally they are allowed to lend their weight to one or another member of the specialized class. In other words, they're allowed to say, "We want you to be our leader" or "We want you to be our leader." That's because it's a democracy and not a totalitarian state. That's called an election. But once they've lent their weight to one or another member of the specialized class they're supposed to sink back and become spectators of action, but not participants. That's in a properly functioning democracy.
That's funny and sadly, true. Glad you're for the movement. Occupy 2012!
read chomsky if you dare - sounds like you have had a good education so you may have trouble with him! what i did not send in the last piece was the title........ Education is Ignorance Noam Chomsky - here is more from the same interview.........But most of the educational system is quite different. Mass education was designed to turn independent farmers into docile, passive tools of production. That was its primary purpose. And don't think people didn't know it. They knew it and they fought against it. There was a lot of resistance to mass education for exactly that reason. It was also understood by the elites. Emerson once said something about how we're educating them to keep them from our throats. If you don't educate them, what we call "education," they're going to take control -- "they" being what Alexander Hamilton called the "great beast," namely the people. The anti-democratic thrust of opinion in what are called democratic societies is really ferocious. And for good reason. Because the freer the society gets, the more dangerous the great beast becomes and the more you have to be careful to cage it somehow.
On the other hand, there are exceptions, and Dewey and Russell are among those exceptions. But they are completely marginalized and unknown, although everybody sings praises to them, as they do to Adam Smith. What they actually said would be considered intolerable in the autocratic climate of dominant opinion. The totalitarian element of it is quite striking. The very fact that the concept "anti-American" can exist -- forget the way it's used -- exhibits a totalitarian streak that's pretty dramatic. That concept, anti-Americanism -- the only real counterpart to it in the modern world is anti-Sovietism. In the Soviet Union, the worst crime was to be anti-Soviet. That's the hallmark of a totalitarian society, to have concepts like anti-Sovietism or anti-Americanism. Here it's considered quite natural. Books on anti-Americanism, by people who are basically Stalinist clones, are highly respected. That's true of Anglo-American societies, which are strikingly the more democratic societies. I think there's a correlation there...As freedom grows, the need to coerce and control opinion also grows if you want to prevent the great beast from doing something with its freedom....
... Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis, two economists, in their work on the American educational system some years back... pointed out that the educational system is divided into fragments. The part that's directed toward working people and the general population is indeed designed to impose obedience. But the education for elites can't quite do that. It has to allow creativity and independence. Otherwise they won't be able to do their job of making money. You find the same thing in the press. That's why I read the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times and Business Week. They just have to tell the truth. That's a contradiction in the mainstream press, too. Take, say, the New York Times or the Washington Post. They have dual functions and they're contradictory. One function is to subdue the great beast. But another function is to let their audience, which is an elite audience, gain a tolerably realistic picture of what's going on in the world. Otherwise, they won't be able to satisfy their own needs. That's a contradiction that runs right through the educational system as well. It's totally independent of another factor, namely just professional integrity, which a lot of people have: honesty, no matter what the external constraints are. That leads to various complexities. If you really look at the details of how the newspapers work, you find these contradictions and problems playing themselves out in complicated ways....
That is really interesting stuff. I don't really know where you stand with regards to OWS but I've been saying that a lot of the trolls on here have been mis-educated to the point that they defend the interests of the 1% (a generalization) as opposed to their own interests. They've been indoctrinated, so to speak.
wow - you read das capital! remember here that i dod not mention the enlightenment - that was all noam - do not want you to think i am that smart. i did read "the invention of capitalism" - very interesting about the early days of capitalism - trying to force workers into factories etc. thanks for responding - too much shit on this site - too many fools trying to do what - i can't really guess.
LOL! You're right, it was Chomsky. It's funny, too, that you mentioned him. I swear yesterday I was in my living room looking at all my books and I saw a Noam Chomsky book on the shelf that I never read and I thought to myself, "Gee. You never read that one." Coincidence, I guess.
Don't ever be intimidated by books. Read read read. That is all they have you do in grad school. You basically pay a lot of money for "professors" to tell you what to read. It's b.s. Anyone can educate themselves and in some ways that is better because you can choose what to read.
"it is the labor of hard-working people that creates the profit."....and may I add their intellectual abilities. There ought to be a hall of shame for all the rich people who got rich on the intellectual property that should have been their employee's. But it's legal.
Absolutely. I agree.
I am treated with respect and paid a good wage. I am the working class friend. I started from nothing. I changed light bulbs and picked up trash in the early days of my work career. I took advantage of every educational opportunity that presented itself and worked hard to advance my career. I'm paid a living wage and then some.
Your hubris is sickening. You are one of the working class in this country that has been mis-educated and, therefore, votes against himself, the goal of the 1%.
See,there you go. I don't fit your "mold" so I'm sickening. I'm mis-educated because I strive for excellence and success. You seem like you would be happier if I made $8 an hour and railed against my employer. Why? Why do you feel the need to degrade someone who is confident and successful in the field they chose?
No. I never said you are mis-educated because you strive for excellence and success. You are mis-educated because you think your interests are the same as the 1%. It's sad. You've been indoctrinated. Why don't you join OWS and support your own interests?
Lol I do.
my uncle would say you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground - you have been brainwashed - or you are a quisling - or possibly lying and you are being paid to do this nonsense - which do you choose - as maggie t would say - tina - there is no alternative!
Lol,just enjoying my paid week off before I start my new job.
very good response
thank you for doing the research. wow, it was higher than i thought?? so who gives an F--we shrink those F-er's margins, and they make a couple million less--but it's necessary to pay off the debt that GWBush (the incompetent) set in motion. has anyone else ever woken up and wonder why there's such resistance to raising taxes on the very well to do?? i feel it's crazy, since it only affects a few.
You don't have to pay off the debt. Iceland went bankrupt rather than bail out the bankers. Then they wrote a new constitution and elected a new government. We could do the very same thing. Greece will in the coming months, right after the bloody revolution to get rid of their former VP of the European Central Bank Prime Minister.
Trojan horse of Goldman Sachs digs into eurozone
Keep it under your hat ... "they" don't want you to know that this is possible.
How about, declare bankruptcy, rewrite Constitutions then prosecute the traitors, predatory lenders and those who aided and abetted them. Afterward you can recoup your losses from the very properties they have stolen from your people.
agree. a walk away may be best.
If by they you mean China. They have a good chunk of change invested in us and they would get angry if they lost it.
Screw China, but especially screw Goldman Sachs, BoA, all the hedge fund assholes, etc.
My sentiment is the same but they still have the potential to get angry with us.
Who cares? They will have plenty of problems to deal with when they can't sell us shit any more.
They lose a portion of their market yes. Maybe even the largest portion but they still have other buyers. We don't own the buying end and I'm sure China has some type of contingency plan if we do crash. That being said because America is so large we impact more than ourselves if and when we fall apart.
So because you are not rich, you want to take it from somebody else?
I say flat rate at 40% with a surcharge of 20% for every dollar earned over a million, a $50,000 individual exemption, a $100,000 cap on exemptions overall, and all capital gains and dividends counted as income!
Now that would be a progressive Flat Tax!
Now you want to tax the dividends?
Taxing interest and dividends at lower rates devalues labor. The idea that you can make money on money instead of actual work is the essence of the problem.
Why should I hire employees and produce products when I can pay less taxes (and make more money) by trading stocks and bonds?
Banks do not lend money. They simply create it from debt! In other words, if there was no debt, there would be no money! Our current financial system is dependent on us being in debt to bankers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc3sKwwAaCU&feature=share
[Removed]
Well I guess the idea is that not everyone can do it.
All income should be taxed as income!
Why? One of the safer ways to make money in the stock market and you want to tax it more? Nobody will want to invest. There is a point where things get excessive.
Nope - taxing income as income is never excessive, 0.1% of the wealthiest make over 50% of all Capital Gains.
What's your point? They make money. That is why they are rich is it not?
What are you ignorant or a Troll ?
Capital Gains is taxed at 15% and my statement directly relates to my previous post, you are just intentionally being stupid to deflect my point or you really are too stupid to bother responding to.
To be honest you're not saying much. Capital gains is income. The wealthiest bring in 50%. They make money which means they are rich. I don't understand the confusion.
Taxing as income - as in the "Income Tax" -- Capital Gains are not taxed as Income they are taxed at 15%
You realize that the principal that is invested and then returned has already been taxed once?
So are you saying that teachers should not be taxed? They are after all being paid with tax money. Their checks were taxes and are being taxed. So what if the money is double dipped, it is first working for your employer where it was taxed, and now it is working for you, and it should be taxed. Call it a value added tax. BOO ya.
I actually believe that all revenue, be it income tax, dividend, or capital gains, should be taxed at the same rate because if you don't then you have the opportunity to play the definitional game as you point out.
Dividends and Capital Gains are profit not the principle - do better than that please!
Yes I know. I do not see the problem.
Yeah so you are just here to Troll then - if you see no problems you obviously troll this forum just out of self gratifying Trolldom -- well enjoy everyone is entitled to their small joys in life.
I see plenty of problems. Like money in politics. That is a problem. What you are suggesting about capital gains and dividends is not a problem
Yes. Bring back the days of Jimmy Carter.
spending tripled the national debt. Tax revenue went up. spending exceeded the increased revenue. the deal the dem congress reneged on.
Reagan's spending triple the national debt. Reagan also raised taxes 11 times.
C'mon, you know the repubs will never admit that.
It must have been Carter.
yea - and? what was the net result of the tax code at the end of his term?
Deficit spending (then) created jobs which increased tax revenue. Now deficit spending goes overseas or is hoarded by banks. no jobs or tax revenue created.
Reagan was the First Horseman of the Apocalypse.
hahahaha! who are the other three?
There is quite a bit of competition for those spots.
[Removed]
But after he dropped taxes the economy grew from a recession and everyone did well so I have to ask what's wrong with that? Now I will admit that taxes should be raised on the rich. But at the same time the Tax Brackets are out of date and must be changed to meet the current times. Plus the 40% of eligible Americans need to start paying their fair share of Income taxes.
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President
Talk about prophetic words! Too bad we failed to heed his good advice...
Jefferson was a very gifted writer and certainly did not use the word "CRUSH" lightly...
The word "CORPORATOCRACY" did not exist at the time, so Jefferson coined the paraphrase "the aristocracy of our monied corporations".
It is NOT too late to CRUSH the power of the demented corporatocracy which is wrecking our country and our planet.
@ T : Niiice Quote !! Hope 2012 is full of Peace, Prosperity and Potential for you and yours And Others !
How come people who say things like "Taxes are too high" and "Government is too large and and needs to be reduced," NEVER seem to have any questions, critique or even notion of The Extreme Excesses of Banksters and The Massive US Military Empire and its Gargantuan Expenditures ?!
Do such costs, expenses & serviceable liabilities have an impact on domestic taxation d'you think ?!!
If the government of The U$A was truly 'democratic', then its size wouldn't be the problem but as a pissant apology of a demoCRAZY deMOCKERYcy is prevalent, whereby there is merely a "Government OF The 99% BY a 1% FOR a Parasitic 0.01%" ... then at the very least, complaining IF not actually Demonstrating, Protesting and 'Occupying' becomes a moral imperative for all people of conscience.
A very real and fundamental point to bear in mind is that taxes on individual entrepreneurs, small businesses and just about everyone else in US/UK society (The 99%), would be lower if Imperial Wars could be ended AND IF the 1% and all the Corporations (apparently 'legally individual persons') paid their Proper and Fair Share of the Taxes !
The Banking Corporations in particular are the primary culprits in this 'Cult of Wealth & Tax avoidance and evasion' And their opposition to The 'Tobin' / Financial Transaction / "Robin Hood", Tax, is utterly unconscionable given the long term existence of the 'Purchase / Sales Taxes' and 'Value Added Tax' (currently 20% in The UK!), which are highly regressive and Everyone Else / The 99%, has to pay !!
I'm not a violent person other than in self-defence but I'm beginning to have dreams about cutting out a senior banker's cold, dead heart with a rusty spoon ... and claiming it AS self-defence !!!
fiat justitia ruat caelum ...
Im for Lower tax's & smaller government, But you can't do that with an Empire all around the world. 900 bases, 140 country's? Multiple wars? We have to start living within our means, were acting as if we have unlimited amount of wealth & we can finance this empire forever...
There is no dought we have to reform our banking system aswell.
The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered. tomas jefferson another great one we forgot
Jefferson probably didn't say exactly those words. It is a paraphrase.
http://fauxcapitalist.com/2009/10/28/what-thomas-jefferson-said-about-private-banks/
What Thomas Jefferson said about private banks
October 28, 2009 by FauxCapitalist
Among the most famous of quotations attributed to Thomas Jefferson, is this one:
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.“
But did Thomas Jefferson really say that? That’s what I had thought, especially after hearing it repeated by so many people on so many different programs and web sites. Then, one day, I decided to verify it for myself, and was surprised by what I found.
Bartleby, famous for its books of quotations, states:
“Although Jefferson was opposed to paper money, this quotation is obviously spurious. Inflation was listed in Webster’s dictionary of 1864, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but the OED gives 1920 as the earliest use of deflation.“
Another authoritative dictionary, Merriam-Webster, reports the first use of the word deflation, in any context, dating back to 1890 — 64 years after the death of Thomas Jefferson.
As Bartleby hints at, one shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Even if Jefferson didn’t say that, in whole or in part, it’s consistent with his beliefs and actions.
The full significance of this quotation will be addressed in several subsequent articles.
my writing skills are maybe a little above average, but i could pen that thought a lot better than he did.
Well go right ahead then!
i'm not going to compete with that preposition-happy tranny
"preposition happy tranny" LOL! did you ever see that sunny in philadelphia episode with the reference to dueling trannies:):) thank you, you have improved my health through laughter. still chuckling.
Illiterate TROLL
troll, yes, but i read a lot.
(thats how i know he's preposition-happy. i would give that a B in a 10th grade english class, in hopes of discouraging the pupil from putting anyone else through it)
TROLL "nulk3", please explain for the benefit of the whole class what makes our 3rd President a "preposition-happy tranny".
as far as preposition happy read first post of this thread.
as for tranny http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/president-thomas-jefferson-2.jpg
More TROLL trash.
To understand WHAT MAKES A TROLL TICK - AND have a chuckle while you're at it - go to:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/how-trolls-think-trollosophy-exposed/
Hi nucleus, Good post. Best Regards, Nevada
I don't see these people in Washington on a "Screw the rich" campaign, it's more the opposite..Why would they want to screw themselves or the people that own them? It's fuck the poor all the way and why not, what has the poor ever done for the politician, they can't donate.
Which is the essential problem when it comes to changing the system - they don't work for us.
What to do with the shit then?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJOjTNuuEVw
If you feed a pig enough, a little will pass through undigested for the rats to eat.
First of all, get rid of all these Congress members if 1) they cannot explain their fortune, i.e., any insider trading anyone? 2) refuse to refrain from taking a) a salary and 2) benefits, health, pension, etc.
On the other end, write the Congresspeople who have remained 'poor'.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/25-richest-members-of-congress/2011/07/11/gIQAmtxiMK_gallery.html?hpid=z2#photo=41
Reagon's first year in office. 1981 Tax rates Marginal Tax Brackets
Tax Rate Over But Not Over 0.0% $0 $2,300 14.0% $2,300 $3,400 16.0% $3,400 $4,400 18.0% $4,400 $6,500 19.0% $6,500 $8,500 21.0% $8,500 $10,800 24.0% $10,800 $12,900 26.0% $12,900 $15,000 30.0% $15,000 $18,200 34.0% $18,200 $23,500 39.0% $23,500 $28,800 44.0% $28,800 $34,100 49.0% $34,100 $41,500 55.0% $41,500 $55,300 63.0% $55,300 $81,800 68.0% $81,800 $108,300 70.0% $108,300 -
Please spread the news about www.copblock.org & www.adamvstheman.com which is two groups of very dedicated people out on the front lines fighting the growing tyrannical para militarized police state and corrupt governmental system for our rights. Thanks!
Why tax them when you can extract our gold right from their mouths, as teeth?
We'll do that later.
Thanks. I have Vise-Grips and I've taught the most disenfranchised to use them. As patriots of course.
That is a waste of time. It is more efficient to use a hammer, my son.
Also skin for leather goods and bones for fertilizer.
Once the corruption has been confronted frontally, with law, there will be more than enough opportunity to engage in the redistributing of the goods and wealth they have stolen from so many. Although I share your hostile thoughts towards the bastards that did this, I also feel it is a responsibility of justice to account for the wrongdoings of each thief respectfully.
When the law has been corrupted for the benefit of the few, the rule of law no longer applies, my son.
Agreed. When the courts, laws and politicians of any nation have been usurped by traitors, it is the duty of the citizen of that nation to reinstate those three crucially important elements back into the nation. Wrenching the power back from the traitors is usually a bloody mess, so don't forget your hammer, it can also build guillotines.
What ever else you may do. Don't take your user name in vain. As the actual owner does not like that sort of thing.
I am the actual owner, my son.
Whatever.
A more respectful attitude would benefit you, my son.
This is just simply unfair. Why should we punish people who have provided a product or service or have a business or company? Rich people are not your enemy here, because a person who lives in a 3 story house & has $250,000 does not mean there the enemy, it does not mean they have been apart of the corruption.
Would YOU want to work for 10 cents on the dollar? Hell no. I believe EVERYONE should be able to keep the fruits of there labor, and that there should be no income tax.
Your tax plan would further help destroy commerce in this country. Government would become BLOATED. We would have even more bases around the world, we would have more government wasteful spending.
After WWII we brought 10 million people home, Cut Spending & Cut Taxs & the economy BOOMED.
Shrink government & give people there Capitol back. Government waste money, government malinvests, government subsidizes.
Eliminate the Income Tax. 0 Out Savings Tax. Kill The Federal Reserve. 0 Out The Capitol Gains. 0 Out The Dividends Tax. 0 Out Corporate Tax on Manufactures. Eliminate Estate Tax. Slash the Corporate Tax to the 10-15 Percent Area. 0 Tax on Repatriation of Capitol back into the country.
Your plan would further impoverish this nation by growing government, taking away more capitol from people. People would run from this country because of how big government would get & how little fruits they got to keep from there labor were.
Our tax code is DESIGNED for big government & draining the people dry. This would make it worse. RICH PEOPLE ARE NOT THE ENEMY.
"After WWII we brought 10 million people home, Cut Spending & Cut Taxs & the economy BOOMED."
You are grossly ignorant of history. While we did indeed boom after WWII, it was not because of low taxes.
Historical top tax rates:
1946 91% over $200,000
1954 91% over $200,000
1964 77% over $400,000
1965 70% over $200,000
1981 70% over $212,000
After Reagan - the beginning of the end of America:
1988 28% over $29,750
[Removed]
Balone! dont tax the rich because that just puts more money in the hands of the goverment, now if we could tax them and send payments to the rest of us, then Id be for taxing the rich, I say to hell with all taxes! that would at least give the 99 percent a significant pay raise!
The government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people ...
Are you mad..Does the world need more tax..
[Removed]
hey genius - be my guest - you set the top rate @ 90% guess what - you get nothing. All I will do is hide the money, transfer assets instead of turning them into cash - you wind up worse off. Go ahead - cut your nose off to spite your face. envious loser !
I don't set the tax rates, your ass-buddies in DC do.
All the taxes in the world wont save this run away train nucleus. We are in a global environment.
Nationalize the banks, go to a command economy with fixed currency rates. Put the dollar on parity at 1:1 with the Yaun. End globalization and lead the world in building stable, sustainable local economies.
You can lead or you can follow. Which will it be?
Im not saying we cant create plans that work in a vacuum. Im saying in a global environment, with a nation that is so spoiled they actually get rid of perfectly good goods and replace with the newer versions.....its the culture, the culture here is fucked, and thats why no amount of planning will matter.
We can try, Im trying, but the real battel is against the behavior of the 99%. Most are too busy dancing with the next chef to care.
Dancing with the chef? You're the one in a vacuum. 23% real unemployment and declining wages for all but the top 1% (or less).
Dancing with the chef was suppose to be a joke dude.
I think even if we come up with great alter-solutions, the masses will flock to whatever the gov says is best for them, which is kind of why we are in such a mess to begin with.
Hey loooosers...what's it like talking to yourselves day after day....
hello dumbells..nobody listening.
jazz hands..jazz hands
boo hoo. crybaby out of work hippies, looking for more cash to spend
Another clueless retard, clearly the product of a defunded public education system.
childish temper tantrum
Tax the rich....to what end? How does this serve any of us? I don't trust our whore politicians on Madison Avenue any more then I trust the johns on Wall Street.
Give more money to an out of control government? Yeah, that's what we need. More bridges to no where. More "humanitarian aid" to China with...um...money borrowed from China. DUH!
A healthy economy can be defined (at least in part) by one in which the moolah is circulating. Trickle down actually works if the pricks at the top spend spend spend.
All you fuckers holding on to hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars. GO SPEND. Buy yourself a few mansions, a couple dozen sportscars, hell I don't care....get yourself an army of whores and a dump truck full of cocaine. Just spend....and put that money back into the economy.
Wanna clean my toilet with your tongue? I'll trickle down some money on you.
So they don't hire. Great fucking plan. Geezus Cristo. OWS is a bunch of spoiled little shits. Get off your ass and make your own destiny you pansy shit.
Who will you tax the shit out of when there are no more rich?
This wouldn't eliminate the rich, or diminish their ability to make money, it will just reduce their ridiculous accumulation of money, which would go back into the economy, creating jobs, which creates tax revenue, which leads to balanced budgets, infrastructure funding, social services, etc.
Every time a corporation of business is taxed, that amount is passed on to the consumer. You may create a situation whereby the corporation or business cannot exist by raising their taxes, but, failing that, YOU pay, ultimately, for every tax increase.
[Removed]
The rich are fleeing high tax states for less greedy governments. The new "millionaire tax" in Maryland drove 1000 of the 3000 millionaires in the state out and ended up reducing overall revenue.
Rich people didn't get rich by letting greedy deadbeats steal their money. :)
[Removed]
I could respond to that in a long way. But I'll simply say this:
In that passage you didn't mention the Federal Reserve not one time. They cause the Recessions & depressions, they provided the alcohol for Wall Street to drink. They are obliterating the middle & lower classes.
[Removed]
Yeah, that's just one more problem, with states rights. Tax 'em high whereever they go.
Or Corporations are able to play states off each other and make political statements by moving from California to Texas. The message is:" kiss our ass or starve." I'd prefer to kiss no one's ass, but if It gots to be, I will kiss my Federal Gov't's.
Even with the high tax rates in the 60's, you still had millions of people in poverty. The rich back then had as much money. What liberals seem to forget is that the lifestyle gap was huge back then. The average guy today has more luxuries that only the elite could afford in those days.
FALSE. The rich "back then" had nowhere near as much money, nor were there as many of them.
You.
You bet it would reduce the corporate control of government! The rich would be too busy giving money to the government to give money to the government! Yay to federal power!
Yo Dawg, I hear you like corruption... ...So I increased the size of government, so you can be oppressed while you get oppressed.
Another multiple troll account.
wigglesthecat Joined Dec. 30, 2011
Nope. I used to be Classicliberal several weeks ago, my only other account, but I lost my password. Thanks for playing.
Wait a second....... You "confirm" that I am a troll by checking to see when I joined? That few people are joining these days? It's all trolls?
If you took away all the profits from the rich in this country and redistributed it to the masses, it would only last to support the country for 158 days.
If you took away all the wealth from the rich and redistributed it to the masses it would only last for 285 days.
After that there would be no jobs to go to - then what?
Another bogus "conservative" talking point, like "taxing the job creators".
The rich hoard wealth. If that wealth was put into circulation it would create jobs, and those jobs would create demand for more goods and services, which would in turn create even more jobs. All those jobs would also create more tax revenue. None of that happens when all the money sits in some investment account or stock portfolio or tax shelter or foreign bonds or gold.
History is clear: the best economy the US ever had was when top tax rates were 70-90%.
[Removed]
Yeah! The rich NEVER invest their money!
besides, hoarding is a right. I, as a poor person, have as much right to hoard my gramma's antiques as my neighbor does to keep his house.
What you don't understand is this:
The economy is flat because people are into debt up to their eyeballs. How can a person who has a business be expected to "hire" someone when the demand isn't there?
If you have 10,000 in the bank to be invested in your business and you have a "shelf full of stock" that hasn't sold are you going to go out and buy more stock so it can sit on the shelf.
I don't think so. So, instead of buying more stock you take that money and invest it in the stock market or buy bonds or invest it so that at some point in time when you need to buy more stock you have the money available.
The economy is not driven by taxing the rich. 68% of the economy is driven by the purchase power of the people of this country.
Who benefits when you tax a business 70-90%. I sure as hell won't and neither will you. The money goes to the government and it is taken out of production. It is then spent and only provides a "temporary" job if it is used for that purpose.
Did you even read the post? Top income, not corporate, tax rates of 70-90%.
Revenue from these taxes from 1945-1979 paid off the post WWII deficit (120% of GDP), built a nationwide infrastructure and resulted in the longest period of stable growth this country has ever seen.
You have no facts to the contrary and no evidence to present to counter this factual historical example.
You didn't say "income tax". All you said was "tax rates were 70-90%
With regard to this rate you are wrong: Here are the "true facts" not your ficticional facts:
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/tax-analysis/Documents/ota48.pdf
From my original post (the topic of this thread):
Tax 'em when they are alive: top income tax rates of 90%
History of Federal Individual Income Bottom and Top Bracket Rates
Source: National Taxpayers Union
It's time YOU start paying taxes also nucleus. That's why we're in the shape we're in. Half the country pays NO federal income tax, so they have no problem voting in goofballs who will spend all day on shit we don't need.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/05/senate-51-of-households.html
If we at least had the feedback mechanism of EVERYONE paying something, then we wouldn't be spending on stupid things like studying the effects of cow farts.
The "aristocracy" ARE the freeloaders today.
FICA is a Federal tax on income. No income, no FICA tax.
40% of all Federal tax revenue comes from FICA, paid by every working American. Since FICA is capped at $106,000, those making more pay a smaller percentage than those making less. This is regressive.
The poor and working classes also pay state, local, sales and property taxes (through direct ownership or indirectly through rent). The purchase price of products they buy includes the profit and overhead of the corporations that produce the products including corporate taxes (if they are paid at all) and the income and taxes of all the corporate staff. No sale, no income, no taxes.
You should really expand your "information" sources beyond Rush.
right on, there's no need to phase out FICA at 106--it should apply to every dollar "earned." BTW: that does not help me at all, however, it will help the babies born today $180,000 in debt the second they slip out.
you are right but that doesn't take into account all the taxes people pay in other ways- sales tax for one, tolls and fees another - when parking meters and subway fares go up that is a tax on those who can afford it the least - if you add up all that the working class and poor pay i am sure you will find that they pay a higher percentage than buffet - that is why chomsky says we have a flat tax already
I think you missed the pont - he was talking about federal "income taxes" not FICA taxes.
A vast majority of the so called "poor" do receive tax credits and supplimentary income from the government.
I have read reports of families with a income of $30,000 receiving up to $20,000 - $25,000 in additional tax credits or income benefits from the government and not having to pay any tax on those.
Is that fair - I don't think so.
And everyone wonders why our government is in the shape it's in.
You missed the point. FICA is a Federal tax on income. It comes right off the top of your earnings and is delivered directly to the Treasury Department. No income, no FICA.
Let's see some facts with your bullshit.
Well FICA is a different tax from the income tax.
You can pay a FICA tax but you may not have to pay a "income tax"
You can have an income and pay no income taxes but you do have to pay FICA taxes
So, what I said was true -
Like I said, half the country pays no federal income tax. Your measly offering to redefine terms falls flat on it's face.
People on vacation in the U.S. also pay sales tax. Should they have access to all the state and federal welfare programs that the poor draw on constantly? Property tax and state tax does not cover the federal programs that all the freeloaders live under such as HUD, HHS, food stamps through USDA, SCHIPS insurance, free cellphones, school breakfast and lunhc programs and soon to be Obamacrapcare.
Not to mention, the 10 million lazy crackheads on Social Security Disability Insurance who haven't been required to pay anything into the program.
Bottom line, we need a flat tax to tax YOUR ass for a change. You need to spend a little more time working and paying taxes, and a little less time running your idiot keyboard.
FICA is a Federal tax on income. No income, no FICA tax.
All that brown goo dribbling out of your face won't change that fact.
Taxing the rich is not going to help nucleus. Wealth inequality is not a bad thing now because the working class still has a lot of luxuries compared to a lot of europeans. That is why we don't have 10 million people rioting in the streets. Low taxes for everyone is good.
We don't have 10 million people rioting in the streets.
Yet.
[Removed]