This is a very well written letter about the importance of taxing the wealthy more;
My long years allow me to remember how our maximum federal income tax rates varied from 64 percent to 94 percent for the 50 years before President Reagan took office, including a maximum rate of 90 percent during all eight years of the Eisenhower presidency. Eisenhower defended the high tax rate by suggesting to the wealthy that “it is in your enlightened self-interest to help create a more just and humane society.” He knew that it is only through our taxes that we together build a society.
Exactly. It is like what I say about paying property taxes though I have no children, it is an investment for our society and a more educated society makes my life better.
Steal even more from your fellow Americans. Penalize them even more for doing well.
Yeah, that’s real bright: http://www.dakotavoice.com/2011/03/class-warfare-killing-the-goose-that-laid-the-golden-egg/
Yeah, it only worked well for over 200 years in our country. Bob, you just gave me my daily laugh.
This is another reason for a simplified flat tax.
Lets say every wage earner above a determined poverty level will pay 25% across the board. Now that makes sense. And eliminate all local taxes on food and clothing.
There is a series of these. What a hoot!
Two of our greatest POTUS’ (Kennedy & Reagan) did the opposite and it worked quite well despite the recessionary times. How about we actually try spending less money first and see what that does? Munson pulled back two years ago and the postive results of doing so = no tapping reserves.
Sy hit it on the head, stop spending so damn much and the perceived need to raise taxes disappears. Also, do you think taxing the wealthy more would actually help? When you have that kind of money you have accountants and dang good ones just to help you keep as much as you can. Penalizing someone for doing good sounds rather un democratic.
T-Shirt: Revised Sermon on the Mount:
The revised Christo-Fascist Sermon On The Mount. And Jesus said “Your poverty disgusts me. Get a job, you losers.”
Color: blue on sand
I’m with Scooter on this one to a point. Just have a flat tax where X amount of money is tax free… for argument sake lets just say $30k per person. Everything above that is taxed at a specific rate. No exceptions, no loopholes, no tax shelters, no deductions. Filing your federal taxes would take all of about 10 minutes and require one single sheet of paper.
However federal taxes don’t have any direct connection to sales taxes, so I doubt that would change. That still needs to be left up to the states on how they want to handle things.
As far as Sy’s attempt at humor by suggesting Reagan was one of our greatest Presidents, I find it dishonest to suggest what he did actually worked considering he had massive deficits each year of his Presidency and wasn’t able to balance the budget even so much as one of those eight years. His issue wasnt cutting taxes… it was the failure to curb spending.
You can raise taxes all you wish but if you don’t curtail spending it doesn’t mean a thing. Likewise you can reduce taxes in hopes the wealthy will allow it to trickle down (voodoo economics) but historically that hasn’t worked either and has only led to a wider dispartity between rich and poor.
We can manipulate tax rates all day long, but if we don’t get spending under control it won’t mean a thing and will be a fruitless effort. We need balanced budget each and every year along with a percentage of our budget being allocated towards the national debt. I don’t expect any radical ideas anytime soon however, because it is much easier for those in Washington to blame each other for the problem than it is for them to get off their asses and fix it.
There is a bill in Congress to raise tax rates on everyone making $1 million+. The new rates would be about 50%. That proposal will generate about $78 billion if the ‘rich’ don’t change their behavior due to higher tax rates. That takes care of about 5% of the current deficit each year ($1.5 Trillion). What’s the proposal for the other 95%???
Oh, boo-hoo, I feel sorry for the rich who don’t actually work for their money, just fuck and scheme people for it, have to pay a higher tax rate.
Maybe someday when the working class is all living like rats we will eat the rich for food.
I still think kids probably taste better, especially charter school rich kids;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbgKEjNBHqM
So l3wis what gives you the right to paint all “rich” people with such a wide brush? Are you saying not a single rich person actually worked for what they have and that all of them just screw people over for the wealth?
First of all, keep in mind that many “rich” people created or manufactured their wealth. Also keep in mind that wealth is not a finite resource, so the fact that Bill Gates is worth something like $35 Billion does not mean that he took that money away from others.
Are there rich people who manipulated others in order to gain their wealth? Obviously… but I hardly think it seems fair to assume they all did. Take someone like an author for instance – who are they screwing over if their wealth was due to book sales? What about someone who make millions from the stock market – who have they screwed over to accumulate their wealth?
I suppose this also comes down to what you consider rich, because some might say that is anyone who makes over $100k a year – others say it is someone who is worth $1M, and to others it might be $15M. How do we determine who should be taxed as part of your “tax the rich” plan? When does someone make too much money in your view?
Who are these “rich who don’t actually work for their money”? I’d say offhand I personally know on a first name basis more than 100 people with an annual household income between $150,000 and $5 million and tangible net worth of $1 million to $50 million. Every one of these individuals worked their ass off and took tremendous risks to get where they got. EVERY ONE OF THEM. In fact, the only people that I know that DIDN’T work for their money, I don’t really “know”, I’ve only heard about them from whiny little fucks that bitch about them.
If you can’t make ends meet in your household budget, do you go to your boss and say “I can’t pay all my bills, you’re going to have to pay me more.”? No, you spend less. Somebody’s gotta have the balls to make the spending cuts that have to be made. It’s not Obama or anyone else in the Democratic party and it’s not anyone in the parade of clowns vying for the 2012 Republican nomination. Somebody’s gotta come from somewhere and drop the shit-hammer on our country’s capital expenditures.
“oh boo fucking hoo, I’m l3wis the ineffective artist/waitress who isn’t rich so tax them bastards who are” you are a fucking retard, start a business, work your ass off doing so, or if it’s so easy don’t work your ass off and make millions, then pay your high taxes as you suggest. Do you see what I’m saying? If it’s so easy, why haven’t you done it? I don’t mean to be harsh but for fuck sakes, grow a brain and get us out of this debt if it’s so easy to make millions as you suggest
Costner – I am talking about the super rich who pay little in taxes.
OK – I agree spending cuts are needed. Let’s first start with ending all of the illegal wars and occupations we have going on, that would save us billions. I would also suggest we start taxing the oil companies who are raping us everyday, and put an end to oil speculation.
I also suggest we stop bailing out the large banks. We bailed them out, and what did we get in return? Nothing.
NPO – I still am amazed how you defend the rich and demonize the working class, something I’m sure you are a part of since you live in SF and have time to come on my blog, because if you were rich, you would be too busy working, as you suggest, because rich people work constantly, that is why they are rich. LMAO!
And I’m the dumb fuck. I have often said, people in SD are Republicans for two reasons. Either they are rich and protecting their wealth, or they are aspiring to be rich. Since you are probably the latter, since you do a lot of brown nosing of the rich.
Sy, FYI – Reagan raised taxes 18 times.
rufusx,
Can you please provide the source for your statement about Regan raising taxes 18 times?
From
http://old.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200310290853.asp
….Reagan may have resisted calls for tax increases, but he ultimately supported them. In 1982 alone, he signed into law not one but two major tax increases. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) raised taxes by $37.5 billion per year and the Highway Revenue Act raised the gasoline tax by another $3.3 billion.
According to a recent Treasury Department study, TEFRA alone raised taxes by almost 1 percent of the gross domestic product, making it the largest peacetime tax increase in American history. An increase of similar magnitude today would raise more than $100 billion per year.
In 1983, Reagan signed legislation raising the Social Security tax rate. This is a tax increase that lives with us still, since it initiated automatic increases in the taxable wage base. As a consequence, those with moderately high earnings see their payroll taxes rise every single year.
In 1984, Reagan signed another big tax increase in the Deficit Reduction Act. This raised taxes by $18 billion per year or 0.4 percent of GDP. A similar-sized tax increase today would be about $44 billion.
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 raised taxes yet again. Even the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was designed to be revenue-neutral, contained a net tax increase in its first 2 years. And the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 raised taxes still more.
The year 1988 appears to be the only year of the Reagan presidency, other than the first, in which taxes were not raised legislatively. Of course, previous tax increases remained in effect. According to a table in the 1990 budget, the net effect of all these tax increases was to raise taxes by $164 billion in 1992, or 2.6 percent of GDP. This is equivalent to almost $300 billion in today’s economy…
I personally know on a first name basis more than 100 people with an annual household income between $150,000 and $5 million and tangible net worth of $1 million to $50 million.
~Olllie
I am really impressed Ollie….and you still find time between hob knobbing with the elite to venture into South DaCola? BRAVO
Reagan also borrowed more $$$ than any previous president and increased the size and spending levels of government than any other “peace-time” (why he gets this designation befuddles me – since he went to watr with at least two nations) president.
Myth. Reagan was a low tax/small government conservative. Reality – Reagan used every avenue of government “fund-raising” and liberal government spending there is to “stimulate the economy”.
http://www.politicususa.com/en/ronald-reagan-record
We need to return to pre-Reagan tax rates for the wealthiest of Americans. Supply side economics has given us two major stock market corrections, the dismantling of the American middle-class, and massive fiscal deficits which have caused books advocating the “Laffer Curve” to
be placed into the fictional section of your local library.
You’ll never find me hobnobbing, but the individuals I am personally acquainted with range from the nearly penniless to the ridiculously wealthy. My statement wasn’t made to impress anyone, least of all you Poly. It was made to take issue with l3wis’ asinine statement that the rich don’t work for their money.
There’s no one single person to blame – not Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush or Obama. Or any of the many classes of the House and Senate that have come and gone. The fact is that we have and continue to spend way too much money as a government. The spending will stop, one way or another. Let’s hope we stop it on our own rather than suffer a complete collapse of life as we know it.
OK – Newsflash! Newsflash! More then one person caused the economic meltdown! Get the fuck outta here! Are you telling me it was a concerted effort by a bunch of rich guys stroking the balls of the right politicians? Wow! I think I am going to just stop blogging and have open threads so I can learn so much from my ANON commenters about how great rich neo-cons are and how bad and lazy poor liberals are.
Ah, the nonsensical raving of a mad man. That’s what keeps me coming back — an argument and an answer for everything. Unfortunately it’s a mile wide but only an inch deep. It just doesn’t take very long to devolve from the original topic to personal and political attacks. Very productive.
If you want to be rich, hang around rich people and do rich people things (like saving); If you want to be poor hang around poor people and do poor people things (complain about how the working class can’t get ahead). L3wis, you and everyone else knows as a waiter you won’t get rich so if it is so horrible why do you remain there? Get an education (yes SD has great education opportunities) and go out and get a better paying job, heck start your own restaurant and pay the staff how you would have liked to been paid (and then go broke). I didn’t like getting low pay so I went to school, heck I am going to school full time and even got a near full time job and I know others who bust ass harder so they can relax in their future (ah, they want to be greedy rich people too!).
tl;dr Buck up and stop bitching.
Ah yes, the old fantasy that the ulta-rich earned their money.
Paris Hilton, David Koch, John Walton…
Don’t raise their top-marginal taxes by 3 cents or the economy will crash!
Oprah made enough money last year to pay the salary of every teacher in South Dakota. But if her taxes went up by 3% she’d go broke?
Please…
If I hit the lottery should I have to pay taxes on it? Of course I should. So how is that different from the estate tax? (Speaking of the Kochs and Waltons…)
If you want to be poor hang around poor people and do poor people things (complain about how the working class can’t get ahead).
~Jim
That is an assinine statement to make Jim. Over 60,000 jobs in SF pay less than $14.00 an hour. And don’t forget the higher than normal part time jobs that have low wages and ZERO benefits as a consequence. Getting an education here nearly guarantees one thing. You’ll move out of state to escape stagnant lower than middle-class incomes.
Is that you, stuefen?
“If you want to be rich, hang around rich people and do rich people things (like saving); If you want to be poor hang around poor people and do poor people things (complain about how the working class can’t get ahead).”
This is the most humorous thing I’ve ever read here.
This stuff cracks me up.
One of the main reasons I wait tables is because it is a way better living then what I did ‘professionally’ and as an ‘educated’ person. Which I still do to, only independently.
The little guy will never crawl from trenches if we continue down this path.
Well your fools then if you don’t believe you can make or break yourself. By hanging around rich people you can find out how to budget, live on less than you earn, etc etc. I know SOME jobs pay low around here, and if you get a useless degree you’ll be screwed too, so use your head and be smart about it. If your always negative then that is how you will perceive things to be.
Jim, I’m negative about negative things, and positive about positive things. We can’t hide from the truth. The middle class is dying a fast death.
I guess I need to start doing background checks on people before I befriend them. I have some extremely rich friends, some extremely poor friends, and everything in between, and I can’t make any generalizations based on their level of wealth. There are great people and complete pieces of shit at all levels of income.
You ain’t a kidding.
I have a friend who does quite well, known him almost 20 years. He worked his ass off, and did all the things people here talk about. No college degree. A wife that has never worked outside the home. In fact, I took one of my ‘lowly’ friends to his house once (they couldn’t believe I knew him) and his kids couldn’t stop talking about her for weeks.
We are all connected, money should never separate us, its silly.