PatsWSB47

The "tax burden" on the super rich makes me think about the burden the NFL owners suffers with. Tragic, isn't it

Patters

Didn't you know the argument for lower taxes for the rich is that they will pump more money into the economy? Didn't you know the capital tax rate is only 15%? It appears that lower tax rates on the very wealthy don't pump up the economy. That's the point. The only reason to give the wealthy a low tax rate is because you feel compassion for them, and perhaps you do since you seem to be complaining about the 45% of those who don't pay income tax (probably because they're poor). Do you think we should tax the poor at a higher rate and further lower the tax on the rich? Is that your point? If not, what is your point?

And Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy, and Obama wants to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

patsfan13

Everyone should have the same tax rate, why discriminate against someone for being successful financially? Discrimination is bad, equal protection under the law, including the tax laws.

Discrimination is bad. The reason for a complicated tax code is to facilitate corruption among elected official, who sell favors for campaign donations.

__________________
"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

Patters

Why should someone who earns $1 million/year have to pay 10x as much as someone who earns $100,000/year? What's fair about that? Why are you embracing such unfairness?

The Brandon Five

Cool story.

Sorry, someone making $1 million pays more than 10x the federal income taxes that someone making $100 grand pays.

To keep this simple, lets assume two single people: Person A ($100k) and Person B ($1 million).

To further keep it simple, assume that they are both single and don't itemize deductions. That leaves a standard exemption of $3,650 and standard deduction of $5,700. For Person A, that leaves taxable income of $90,650 and a tax liability of $19,098. For Person B, that leaves taxable income of $990,650 and a tax liability of $324,371.25. That is just a hair under 17X.

PatsFanInVa

Here's another way to look at it.

Let's say family A has a pizza with eight slices for a day's food supply, for four people. That's a slice for lunch and a slice for dinner, no breakfast.

Then you take two pieces away, so they make do with six slices, four people, two meals.

Now, let's say family B had 20 pizzas, four people, two meal. Instead of taking away 2 pieces (1/4 of a pizza, like family A) or even 5 full pies (1/4 of all the pizza family B has,) you take away 6 pizzas, leaving family B with 14 pizzas for 4 people, for 2 meals.

There are two standards of fairness being discussed:

One standard is that Family A and Family B both lose 1/4 of 1 pizza.

One standard is that Family A and Family B both should lose 1/4 all their pizza.

These solutions are considered fair.

I do not know that it's fair, but to me, it would seem right if family B gave up a greater percentage of their pizza than family A.

But this is far more reality-based than anyone would expect the locals on this board to get.

PFnV

Patters

I was responding to pf13's argument in favor a flat tax. Yes, right now, using his reasoning our tax system is unfair; but with a flat tax it would still be unfair (using his reasoning). My point is simply that you don't address unfairness with taxes, you address it by creating opportunities. The wealthy person who pays high taxes has a far greater opportunity to go after that tax revenue by investing in the companies that stand to benefit from tax dollars.

Titus Pullo

Sorry to nitpick, but I'd say it's far more accurate to assert that we've had 31 straight years of corporate presidency. Are we suggesting Clinton's policy strayed very far from "trickle down?" I, for one, sure don't see it that way.

In fact, since JFK, we've had what, four years of true liberalism in the White House at all? That's a whole lot of pro-corporation emperors though.

Please don't pretend Bill Clinton's 8-years was some radical deviation from Reagonomics (military cuts aside).

What about them? The SEC is still largely weightless, our judicial system corrupted, and accounting fraud is still an embraced business practice for all. It's rather awesome at this point.

My overall point is, not much fundamentally has changed since Reagan took office and "cleansed" the White House.