Tax the Rich, My solution for all the world's problems Options

[Rick]

Bush's tax cuts for the rich began the huge deficits and colossal national debt the USA now faces. Tax cuts in California led to the destruction of what was once one of the world's finest education systems, and it was all free to the worthy. Capital gains and income tax cuts have left no incentive to keep money invested. Instead, the wealthy use Wall Street like a gambling casino. When taxes were high in the Eisenhower era, if people pulled cash profits out of businesses they were taxed, so they would let it ride, stabilizing the economy. Let's put back the controls on banks and taxes on the wealthy for economic prosperity for all.

[maximus242]

Lol taxes leading to economic prosperity? Are you crazy?

Countries with the lowest taxes are often the most prosperous. Governments have proven they are more than capable of wasting money in disgusting amounts. It is not the lack of funds that is the problem, its the horrendous, disgusting management and waste of funds that is the problem.

You put that money in the hands of someone like Warren Buffet and tell him to manage the money governments normally manage and he could do 2x 3x the work with the same amount. It is capital allocation and management not capital acquisition which is the mark of a great government.

The lower the taxes the higher the economic prosperity gets, there is more money in the system and less in the government to burn away. Taxing the rich will certainly not solve the countries problems, in case you have forgotten it was the rich who brought the US out of the great depression, they were the only ones left with any money.

People are poor because they are bad at managing money, which is why 90% of lottery winners are in worse financial shape then the day before they won the lottery.

It is poor financial management which is the cause of economic hardship, not taxation.

[Rick]

The evidence doesn't support your case. The Eisenhower years had the highest taxes and were the most prosperous. Reagan cut taxes and started the downward slide.

In 1967 when I graduated high school, California had the best public schools in the world. 20 years later after the taxpayer revolt and Reaganomics, they were 49 out of 50 states.

Germany has much higher taxes than the USA and that country is much more prosperous. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but the USA economy is in the toilet right now. Retirement accounts have lost up to half their value and half the mortgages are in danger of default.

Laffer's curve is a fraud. We are on the up side of the curve, not the right downward side. Raising taxes, especially on the rich who merely siphon off wealth, raises revenues for rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. Sounds like you've been listening to Repug talking points. When Bush cut taxes on the rich in '01, we started into an immediate deficit. Re-tax the rich.

[maximus242]

Nope I like Obama, I dont like the way governments spend money though. The US is the heart of capitalism, its the very foundations of it. It is the nature of capitalism that some people will make more than others, its like playing chess, some people will win more often than others. Its part of the nature of the beast.

I think the reason for the US deficit may also have something to do with the trillions spent on the war in Iraq... not just because the rich got a tax break

I dont think higher taxes are the answer, its inefficient. I think taxes should continually be going lower with increased efficency and effectiveness in capital management by governments.

We should be getting more value for our dollars as every year goes by, not investing more dollars to get more value. That is a poor return on taxation.

The reason why the US is in a deficit is once again mainly due to poor financial management, the idea that its purely because of a change in tax policy is preposterous. The idea that simply getting more taxes will solve all the problems is also preposterous. It is the management of money not the acquisition of it which the government fails at.

[GodConsciousness]

I am not a big fan of taxes. Seems like we get taxed every which way possible. I would prefer the government be more self sustaining which I think is possible if things are run well.

[wan]

One thing that appears to be overlooked here. Government spending is taxes whether it came from taxes or not. If taxes are cut and spending goes up, the reality is the overall tax rate increased. Your income does not depend on how big your paycheck is, it depends on what you can afford to buy with it. Thus government spending is the source of taxes, not the source of the money. When higher income people pay higher taxes it merely places economic pressure on companies to distribute more of the money into higher income pay to maintain the same income differential.

Note that when you purchase any item 100% of that money is profit for someones paycheck, just not all the same company or person. So no matter how sneaky you are claiming someone besides you payed that 40%, that's still 40% from the 100% from which your paycheck is payed from. Even if the government merely printed money to spend without taxing anyone, and purchased 40% of our production, that means your paycheck can purchase 40% less. That doesn't even count the lowered production from government hiring people out of productive jobs to operate the government. Not to say every action they take is non-productive, but it is by definition an overhead cost.

We certainly need government, but governments role should be to insure equitable rules and regulations. Not to provide unfair advantages to their power base for political payoff. Nor create government sanctioned quasi-monopolies like Fanny and Freddie. Simply taxing the rich to pay for the taxes that's already been payed through spending, and counted as a debt because we didn't want it coming out of our paycheck, is just adding more taxes on ourselves to be counted as more of our debt.

Think about it, if rich people thinks it's worth buying bonds to pay taxes that we didn't want to pay ourselves, on the promise of getting a piece of our future income (interest), why does the taxpayers not think it's worth paying it themselves? I don't care what the tax rate is, government should live within the budget of those taxes. We could have payed cash for the war, economic stimulus package, etc., just on what we pay to maintain our debt on taxes we already payed through spending. These same wealthy people that we now want to increase taxes on are to a large degree the ones were paying dividends to for paying our past tax cost.

Instead of insisting the rich pay our taxes for us, why not ask for policies that puts more pressure on increasing income, then pay our own damn taxes. And quit selling our tax burden to the rich for an even larger share of our future income. Simply allowing this to continue and yelling tax the rich more simply increases how much of your future income can be bought by the rich, and freezes out your own income gains with economic expansion. Then we could afford those good schools, etc.

[Hey Hey]

We certainly need government, but governments role should be to insure equitable rules and regulations.

We absolutely do NOT need governments (though we should define precisely what we mean by this). Historically humans fell into this dead-end system and are now suffering the consequences of top-lead decision-making, ignoring the real talent for ideas present in the general population. What we need is a civil service that must take instruction from each and every individual able to vote (the possible rules on this could be discussed). And those votes would determine ALL policies and then associated decisions to enable a consensus society. This would be any easy system to setup and maintain in this digital age. It is time to move on from the archaic, corrupt and fatally flawed system of government with its incessant swings and different in-power policies from those campaigning lies and deceits.

Incidentally: Do YOU have to pay Income tax? No, and truth is YOU never really did. It is your Person/Strawman who is a tax payer. If you are foolish enough to pay for him that is your problem. Search this out for enlightenment.

[Hey Hey]

And why would more tax be needed? When there is all of this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6703413885850200097#

[maximus242]

Ah music to my ears, so your a natural person are you Hey Hey?

I take it you know all about natural vs artificial persons...
Theres also a lot on the fractional reserve banking system which is a rather complex monetary system used by many western countries including the united states. Its also completely insane.

[GodConsciousness]

is there any fiscal responsibility? seems like more and more money is just thrown into ever deepening deficits in hopes that china and other countries will keep buying US debt.

[maximus242]

Not really. A few powerful bankers control the majority of the money in the world. Which is why you really pay taxes. Have you ever heard of economic hitmen? They are used by various gov'ts and banks to weaken a country financially through bribes and manipulation, then the bank loans the country money to get out of the situation -- at which point the country is now at their mercy.

[Hey Hey]

Ah music to my ears, so your a natural person are you Hey Hey?

I take it you know all about natural vs artificial persons... The core problem is the world bank which is apparently the central power behind most of it. The Federal Reserve is actually a crown corporation, which is owned by the City of London, and the corporation of city of london is presided over by her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the II, and owned by the Vatican.

I'm a human being, yes.

Here we have the Bank of England that has deemed itself the owner of straw people and attempted ownership of human beings if it can continue to deceive them into submitting themselves to its authoritative ownership. The complexities devised to hide this slavery system are almost insurmountable for the uninformed, misinformed and actually quite poorly and under-educated majority, however they might think differently. How the various world banks, reserves and investment institutions etc are associated with one another adds a further level of complexity. As the system is so opaque, and to be realistic probably uncrackable, then a world-wide citizen's rebellion is almost certainly necessary. After informing as widely as possible, we need to reject the system and its perpetrators, to regain our free human status, recover our stolen wealth and prevent the situation from ever occurring again. We will need some powerful brains and activists to peacefully achieve this. The first step really is to reject the world's governments and take charge of the decision making.

I have borrowed this quote to illustrate our rights: "The fact is that YOU are actually senior to the Government - because you are a living thinking flesh and blood being, which a government is not. A government is nothing but an idea expressed on paper - a corporation, a legal fiction, all be it a large one. It itself does not exist in the Physical Universe as such - the employees, land and buildings of it does, but the government itself does not. You can sign a contract - the government can't. How can an idea expressed on paper hold a pen? Only another human being authorized to sign on behalf of the government can. And that human being is your equal before the law."

("People are ruled like cattle and sheep, except that the fences which hold us are constructed in our minds". - "Crank Yanker")

[GodConsciousness]

so much smoke and mirrors. so many systemic issues.

[Hey Hey]

is there any fiscal responsibility? seems like more and more money is just thrown into ever deepening deficits in hopes that china and other countries will keep buying US debt.

There is no real debt (cf above). If there was a real debt then there are assets and income to offset it (see the video cited above). Some say this is all a covert way of running an underground communist state anyway. Maybe Chinese ownership of the false debt will be the (intended?) outcome. Then China (communism) will prevail ... as per the design?

[Hey Hey]

In the UK we have never been so heavily taxed (even before the next wave due to the so-called world financial crisis). Much of that is indirect (stealth) tax in an attempt to hide it from the oblivious wii playing masses. And yet we are still in the shit. So how will Rick's 'more tax' idea work? More tax is never good. Efficiency through honesty is the answer. And the first honesty penalty is to openly disclose the Government's assets and use some of it to offset the national debt. This apply on both sides of the Atlantic.

[Trip like I do]

I say we should tax the rick!

[wan]

And why would more tax be needed? When there is all of this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6703413885850200097#

I'm going to have to look into this in depth. Thanks.

[Hey Hey]

I say we should tax the rick!

He can afford it!

[maximus242]

I sincerely doubt that govt's will ever get out of debt without a major change, there is too much bribery and political influence stopping it from happening.

Also income tax did not always exist and governments got along fine without it before it existed.

Oh Hey Hey have you ever read up on the Fractional Reserve banking methods? Its ludicrous, you would find it most interesting as it perfectly coincides with the fiat money concept, and debt cannot exist because money is not technically of any value anymore. Even if it was a natural person cannot owe money to a corporation, only a corporation can interact with another corporation. It is fiat, they have a lot of information directly obtained from the Federal Reserve you would be most interested in, some of it should be on YouTube.

[Rick]

And why would more tax be needed? When there is all of this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6703413885850200097#

I just downloaded my city's CAFR. All on the up-and-up. He may be exagerating. My town's business investments are a tiny fraction of the expenses for services.

[Rick]

I am not a big fan of taxes. Seems like we get taxed every which way possible. I would prefer the government be more self sustaining which I think is possible if things are run well.

Sorry to hear you're so rich. The rich say they hate taxes, but look closely. They love unfair taxes on the poor such as a bottle tax on wine or parcel tax on real estate. That way a poor guy pays exactly the same amount as the rich guy with the hundred dollar bottle of wine and living in a mansion. But the rich enjoy good roads, clean water, safe products, and sanitation even more.

Why Are We Afraid to Tax the Super-Rich?

http://www.alternet.org/story/146020/why_a..._the_super-rich

[Joesus]

And why would more tax be needed? When there is all of this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6703413885850200097#

I just downloaded my city's CAFR. All on the up-and-up. He may be exagerating. My town's business investments are a tiny fraction of the expenses for services.

Did you check it for the state of California to see if it is as broke as it says it is?

[Rick]

I personally know an Assemblymember. California is worse than broke. But I will look at the CAFR when I get a chance and ask the 53rd AD Assemblymember about any inconsistencies I find. I will be very surprised if there's any hidden money to be found. Tax the rich!

[Hey Hey]

Off topic slightly, but I was wondering how much armed forces asset value the US and UK (amongst others) had in Iraq and Afghanistan (to name but two). And what happens to it when the invasions, wars and occupations are over (whoops, nearly fell off my chair!). OK, they will most probably find another country to invade. But let's say they didn't. Is it just a matter of store it 'til it rots? That is, wasted investment? The question is a little bit rhetorical, as I've already seen info on the hundreds of stockpiles of rotting equipment from previous endeavours! So the precedent's already set, eh?

Do the rich like their assets treated that way Rick?

[Rick]

Off topic? Isn't that grounds for banishment?

So lets say a rich guy at KBR sells a billion dollars of war stuff to the government for 10 billion. The government blows up half of it, but the other half is still somewhat useable at the "end" of the conflict. In most cases it will just stay where it is because it costs so much to ship it back and refurbish it. The rich guy at KBR doesn't care 'cause he already got his nine billion in profit, and besides, the rich got the poor to pay for it! I'm a poor guy who pays 30% income tax, while the rich guy pays only 15% capital gains tax (unless he pays zero with loopholes and fancy lawyers). Taxing the rich will allow us to reduce middle class taxes. Tax the rich!

[Trip like I do]

....OK, they will most probably find another country to invade....

.... future potential candidates include Iran, N. Korea and/or Somalia

[Rick]

We shall see, won't we? FDR shut down wartime profiteers. Oh, the good old days!

[maximus242]

Sounds to me Rick like you have a bit of resentment towards the rich and I sincerely doubt you would be advocating "tax the rich!" so strongly if you were rich yourself. Then I think there would be a different story.

As I said before, wealth is just a game, like chess, some people win, some people lose, its the game of economics.

[Hey Hey]

Off topic? Isn't that grounds for banishment?

[wan]

Rick,
In taxing the rich, are you proposing that we take money they already earned and paid taxes on? If not you can't touch their wealth. All you can do is stop it from being worthwhile for them to make more money, which means your job.