The Joint Committee on Taxation in Congress has issued a new report on tax burdens across the United States. The Committee used data from the Tax Policy Center and divided the public into five income groups. What they found was that the top 20 percent of earners paid 87 percent of the taxes in the country. The remaining 80 percent covered 13 percent of the burden. The data could challenge the common mantra of politicians that the top earners do not pay their fair share. Though the concentration of wealth should be considered (and a recent study found that one percent of the world’s wealthiest individuals control two-thirds of the world’s wealth), the figures in the United States shows an increasing tax burden in the top 20 percent range. We have previously discussed such studies and the disconnect between the rhetorical and the statistical in tax debates.
The 165 millions households were divided into income brackets of roughly 65 million each. The top 20 percent represents incomes of $150,000 or more. That bracket represents 52 percent of the income but carried 87 percent of the tax burden. Conversely, the lower 60% of households with up to about $86,000 will pay nothing in federal income tax — down from 2 percent last year. This does not include state or sales taxes.
Rep[ubs love to yank out tha stat, but the way to look at this it not how much taxes are paid by the top 20%, but how much their income is paid to taxes, for if they are only paying 15% (since they have all kinds of loopholes to take advantage of), and us working folks are paying 35%, that paints a different picture, now, doesn’t it?
And that top 20% have in excess of 90% of the income most of which is held by the very top 1%. That means the richest in our nation are still not paying their fair share either proportionally or in terms of the share of national wealth they receive annually. We should return to the tax rates we had under Ike! 90% should be the highest marginal rate paid by the very richest citizens. After all, they benefit far more than any of the rest of us from a safe, secure economic system and when they pay their fair share it will benefit them even more.
in theory i would agree on jamming up the tenth of one percenters.
except it just wont work. they will expatriate.
“candle not worth the game”
The rich aren’t paying their freight. Send them packing without their American citizenship. They can apply to a Central American country for residency. Forbid their return to the U.S. The nation doesn’t need predators.
And that top 20% have in excess of 90% of the income most of which is held by the very top 1%.
In your imagination only. All evaluations of income distribution in the United States published by the World Bank in the last 25 years have attributed 46% of the total personal income stream to the most affluent quintile of the population.
Moreover, since the rich can hedge against inflation, and the poor are much less able to, the cost of inflation is born by the poor who are unable to hedge, so those who argue they do not pay taxes, in fact, do, via the de facto tax of inflation.
The bottom 80% pay only 10% of the taxes.
Slaves by definition don’t pay taxes.
Neither does a large percentage of the population. Your point is?
You made it.
Linda, I know that this is a bit difficult for you to understand but correlation is not causation.
Correlation is how you come up with all your loonie ideas.
Allan, my ideas are not loonie. They are stupid and wrong, yes, but not loonie.
Horuss,
You do not read the article very carefully. The top 20% has no where close to 90% of the income.
From the study…
“The top 20 percent represents incomes of $150,000 or more. That bracket represents 52 percent of the income but carried 87 percent of the tax burden.”
Therefore, the top 20% pay have about 50% of the income but pay almost 90% or all income taxes.
They are not paying their fair share? You have an unusual definition of fair.
@horuss
Hey Karl Marx, read the article. It is actually very short and easy to comprehend.
From the article – “The top 20 percent represents incomes of $150,000 or more. That bracket represents 52 percent of the income but carried 87 percent of the tax burden.”
Capiche?
The IRS and income tax are unconstitutional and unnecessary.
Government was established by the American Founders solely to facilitate freedom and free enterprise.
Congress has merely the power to tax for “general Welfare” while individual welfare was deliberately omitted from the Constitution and, thereby, deliberately excluded.
The constitutional right to private property precludes confiscation of private property in the form of money for the purposes of antithetical, communistic and unconstitutional redistribution of wealth. James Madison defined “private property” as “that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
The massive and punitive income tax is not only unconstitutional but unnecessary as the size of the massive and redistributive government, including its many multiple unconstitutional agencies, departments, programs and laws, must be drastically reduced and reverted to its actual constitutional funciton of solely facilitating freedom and free enterprise.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;…”
“The federal government had relatively few expenses compared to today and did not have as much need to raise large amounts of money.”
_______________________
A Primer From Pocket Sense
_______________________
“How Was the United States Government Funded Prior to Income Tax?”
“The government had lower revenues and lower expenses before the income tax.”
“Prior to the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913, the United States government funded its operations mainly through excise taxes, tariffs, customs duties and public land sales. The federal government had relatively few expenses compared to today and did not have as much need to raise large amounts of money.”
____________________________________________________________________________________
The key to taxation is the avoidance and elimination of expenditures.
Since our nation has been off the gold standard, the temptation to create fiat currency is great, and has resulted in enormous inflation since the 50s. Because the rich and middle class can hedge via property ownership, stocks, gold & silver hoarding, and the poor much less able to, the poor bear the cost of this inflation tax more than any other group.
Do you happen to know what the inflation rate has been over the last 10 years, or even 20 years? And I mean in the United States, not Mexico.
Well, let’s compare real-state property housing costs, the biggest expense for most Americans. Over the past 20 years, real-estate in highly desirable states like CA have quadrupled.
Look at health care costs. Health care costs grew from 5.5% of GDP to 17% in the past 20 years.
Look at private education costs (college tuition and R&B).
Wait. Did you find a “poor” clause in the Constitution? The “poor” weren’t even allowed to vote as it was known that they would “sell” their votes (you vote for Obongo and Hillary and you get “free stuff”). I don’t find Karl Marx’s “redistribution” in the U.S. Constitution. The American Founders abolished dictatorship and gave citizens freedom with a government whose sole purpose was to facilitate freedom and free enterprise. Central planning, redistribution of wealth and social engineering are immutably unconstitutional. Ben Franklin, we gave you “a republic, if you can keep it.” Charity is industry conducted in the free markets of the private sector. The charity industry has been unconstitutionally nationalized.
Lincoln- the eternal threat that faces the nation is the divine right of kings, those who eat the bread for which others toil.
The U.S. does not operate as an economy of free markets. If it did, business profits would be used to improve products and lower prices, instead of being used for attacks against democracy.
The Kochs and their brethren have redistributed labor’s rewards for productivity gains, to themselves via public policy. Limited government people wouldn’t fund ALEC.
Do you have the slightest inkling of knowledge of that statements place in our history and what replaced it?
Something specifically discussed and addressed and answered as the Constitution was being formed and written?
Do you care?
“The franchised citizens took the place of the divine right of kings as ‘the ultimate source of power’ in the system we now know as Representative Constitutional Republic’ and that source, that pool has done nothing but enlarge for 240 plus years. That statement is one reason the framers didn’t bother to address political parties one of the few points they missed in fashioning this entirely new type of government never before seen nor heard of in the history of the world.
It is the source we tapped in 2016 to fight and defeat the single party system, the socialist autocracy and it produced 40% of the votes cast in choosing electors. More than the Socialist Party produced and more than the Republican party produced. When Hillary tantrummed laying on the floor kicking and screaming and crying she had no clue where her lost votes had gone and to this day still has no clue.
The so called media better known as the propagandaists of th eleft railed and ran in little circles screaming and shouting they too had no idea where to look .
The least clueless called it a Phantom Army?
The neat part is they still don’t know who we are nor that we are still operating day in day out and the supporters of the foreign ideology that works for a socialist autocracy is still number one on the list
Watch them go into denial as they refuse to acknowledge the citizens are the ultimate source of power and but also watch them try to fix the system to deny us that ‘divine’ right.
Of course the wealthy pay their fair share. They carry the freight, do all the heavy lifting, and then their contributions are sneered at.
You know who didn’t build roads, bridges, and schools? Those who don’t pay taxes, aside from sales tax. Those who are better off are usually happy to contribute, and to help out those less fortunate. However, it is insulting to do so much for the country only to be viewed as the enemy by the very people whom you help.
Class warfare is nothing more than a political tool. Do we want another Holodomor to happen here? The successful farmers of Ukraine, the kulaks, were labeled enemy. When they resisted Stalin’s collectivization, they were indeed taught a lesson they would never forget…but the world has. Academia has. Those who fall for the whole 1% ploy have.
http://holodomorct.org
Don’t believe for a minute that we won’t protest da debt T rump has laid on our kids to give big tax cuts to uber rich and corporations. Class warfare is being waged on those that work for a living by da uber rich. Inflation and interest rates are gonna make it worse and worst.
uh ken. just to let you know. raising interest rates favors debtors, generally.
trump won on the white working class vote. the uber rich were squarely behind billary
So if da interests go up my payments are lower. You have it backwards. T rump got da rich white vote and tricked some workin class folks into thinking he was on their side. T rump and Putin want oligarchs to take our money.
No, raising interest rates favors aspirant creditors. Unexpected inflation favors debtors.
Where was your big mouth when your Reichsfuhrer Obama did the exact same thing and his Schutz Staffel still in elected office continues in that method. Codified in the sixties as the Circle of Economic Repression or the Cycle of Repression and written out by Comrade Carlos Marighella used in Brazil and by the Tupamaros of Uruguary in the sixties all it took is changing the specified roles and we ended up with “Never let a good crisis go to waste.
It is and remains the latest strategy of the Socialist Fascists and their Clone Clown such as Robo Ken.
Where was your big mouth then? Why… none of the programmers had added it to the list of Trolls.
If you implying those who are rich and pay more taxes, are better virtue of that fact than those who are poor and cannot pay taxes and therefore only those who pay taxes deserve access to infrastructure, etc.,, I will never accept that premise. I’m not religious, but if you are, I doubt Jesus would accept it, either.
Aren’t you putting words in the mouths of others using your inabiltiy to understand the comment … thus covering yourself with words “if you are implying,” “and therefore only.” and the rest of it thus manufacturijng a string of false premises and making a poorly written attempt to manufactur a subject fact out of what is and unproven ‘joke?”
Objectivism wins everytime.
The “heavy lifting” from Palm Springs?
BTW- Mueller is investigating Ukraine’s $150,000 to the Trump organization..
Linda, firstly you made a gigantic mistake in your comment. I’ll let you figure it out.
Secondly Slate writes: ““Mr. Pinchuk, who has been accused by steel makers in the United States of illegally dumping steel on the American market at artificially low prices, drew more scrutiny during the campaign for his ties to Hillary Clinton and her family foundation,” according to the New York Times. “He has donated more than $13 million to that organization since 2006.””
Harry Truman was the last Democrat. He is the last person elected who didn’t have a college degree, and he was the last ex president that when he died he did not die a wealthy man because he was an ex president.
I think when Truman was reluctant to go to a State event Herbert Hoover helped him out.
But he was still a progressive socialist … by that time the system started by Woodrow Wilson and FDR was well entrenched and the party of slavery and turned Jim Crows, was taken over and turned into the party of anti-civil rights then the scientific darwin liberals administrative machine, and was almost to the goal of the single party system. with no franchise. when 2016 brought them an unwelcome surprise. It was incremental but it wasn’t constitutional. I only wish we could have destroyed it compiletely. But that will take a few more years.
This is the way it should be. The Federal Income Tax was meant to assessed on rich people. Here is a copy of the very first Form 1040, from 1913:
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/1913.pdf
FWIW, the average income was about $800 per year in 1913, and the income tax did not kick in until one hit $20,000 per year. Here is a look at 1913 vs 2013:
https://www.moneychoice.org/then-vs-now/
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Thanks for sharing that, Squeeky. Fascinating.
Taxes are for the little people. Leona Helmsley.
IIRC, she was put on trial for paying $55 million in taxes when a proper accounting said she owed $57 million.
“Only stupid people pay taxes”- Trump
More fake news from Linda-bot. False quote/
What trump said was “not paying taxes makes me smart.”
every person taking their taxes to the accountant this month feels the same way, if they can
No. People often pay taxes out of an expectation of services, like national security, honest elections, environmental protection, safety etc. The most selfish people are among the richest 0.1%, people like Trump.
Linda writes: “Only stupid people pay taxes”- Trump”
What Trump actually said was:
“That makes me smart”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsJWn2qXThA
This demonstrates that Linda lies and quotes things that do not exist.
Micheal Moore is probably looking to hire her.
Even Michael Moore would rather leave her in the bottom of the bin.
This is simply another reflection of the old 80-20 rule. This concept, also referred to as the Pareto principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Management consultant Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who noted the 80/20 connection while at the University of Lausanne in 1896, as published in his first paper, “Cours d’économie politique”. Pareto demonstrated that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.
Pareto, Mussolini adored him. Fascist! So he must have been wrong. Right?
Mussolini may have taken some ideas from Pareto, but that doesn’t affect the validity of the 80-20 rule in the slightest. Mussolini was also known to “adore” clothes and eat spaghetti, but that doesn’t make either of those two things necessarily bad either.
I think we should tax each person who comes across the border to live here a flat fee of $100,000. If they don’t have it then they can’t come in.
Mister Trump: Build up that Wall.
Believe it or not, there was once NO federal income tax, and USGovt was much smaller. Excise taxes on liquor were a major revenue source. Then they passed prohibition. Oops! So they passed an income tax and nobody cared because it only affected the rich. Then came bracket creep and WWII, you know the rest. Ignorant self-righteousness can cause a long tail of unintended consequences. Better if the US had never gone down that road in the first place.
“Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society.”
The Kochs have designed the U.S. as a feudal society.
The US is a capitalist society and the Kroch brothers manipulate sycophantic republicans just as the silicon valley bazillionaires manipulate their democratic sycophants.
Conservatives will invariably point to this study and say that upper-income earners are over-taxed. ‘Therefore Republican tax cuts to the wealthy are justified’. Professor Turley strongly suggests he shares this view by noting, “We have previously discussed such studies and the disconnect between the rhetorical and the statistical in tax debates”.
But the real problem is that the lower 60% of earners can’t make enough income to ‘owe’ taxes. Here our paltry Federal Minimum Wage is the likely culprit. In no state is the Minimum Wage truly adequate for supporting a single person, let alone a family four. That is why far too many people are collecting Federal Food Stamps. Food Stamps are essentially a Federal subsidy to big box retailers (Walmart) and fast food restaurants; allowing them to pay inadequate wages.
In many so-called ‘red’ states, especially the deep South, the minimum wage is still below $8 per hour. Realistically no one can live on wages that low and possibly have enough to afford Obamacare insurance coverage. And that is one good reason people in red states resent Obamacare; because they can’t afford it! If one earns less than $8 per hour, they are lucky to make the rent each month.
The low-minimum wage is one big reason residents in red states are chronically angry with regards to politics. Who wouldn’t be angry trying to live on less than $8 per hour?? Yet foolishly these red state residents vote Republican. And Republicans ‘return the favor’ by keeping minimum wages at inadequate levels.
So why can’t red state residents get smart on this issue? It all goes back to Obama’s remark in 2008 when he said that “guns and religion” are all that matter to some voters. That certainly describes small town Whites in red states. They perceive the Republican party as a brand name for White voters. One can see that view expressed every day by commenters on this blog.
Peter Hill
Your comment is intelligent, insightful, logical, clear, and persuasive. Excellent.
fyi- many of the blog commenters you reference are in Kosovo, with the direction to create dissension based on race.
Domestically, “Millions were spent to elect Republicans, by organizations like Americans for Job Security. The organization received a $43,000 fine for illegally hiding its source of funding for political ads….(and, in a similar vein,) $11,000,000 was contributed to an Arizona non-profit that made a contribution to a Calf. campaign committee.”
Deregulation allows foreign interests and domestic oligarchs to control the country.
Reasoned argument. Except it does nothing at all to address the facts of the article.
The Professor clearly states that households making less than $86,000 per year generally exempt from income tax. And $86,000 per years is about what a family of 4 requires to live a basic, middle class life style in most metropolitan areas.
And $86,000 per years is about what a family of 4 requires to live a basic, middle class life style in most metropolitan areas.
You’re saying that a family of 4 requires a mean disposable income of $21,500 per person for a ‘basic’ living standard. Just to point out that in real term that was the national mean in 1977. The national mean is usually located at the 67th percentile or thereabouts of the general population. So, it’s your view that 2/3 of the population had a sub-basic standard of living 40 years ago. Just want to get that straight.
Peter Hill sounds like the lefties from the west side of NY that complain that a normal lifestyle living includes the Metropolitan Opera House, Taxis, and Boulud.
Is “Leftie from the West Side” a euphemism for Jews?
“Is “Leftie from the West Side” a euphemism for Jews?”
A lot of Jews live on the West side of New York. They also live on the East side of New York and many live in Brooklyn or Queens, not so many in the Bronx or Staten Island. You like racism so you think in that fashion, but Jews are a minority in NYC.
I think your comment was disgraceful and demonstrates the type of person you are.
Is “Leftie from the West Side” a euphemism for Jews?
Couldn’t you strive for some originality if you’re going to engage in this sort of gamesmanship? Back to the kid’s table.
Conservatives/Russians both want dissension. But, they’d prefer a light not be shed on it.
Putin’s footprints all over the election. The Mercer’s Bannon. The Kochs’ ALEC “stand your ground”
Professor Turley says, and I believe him, that few households under that $86,000 threshold are paying income tax. Now maybe you’re saying that we should raise taxes on that group?
And allow me to point out that the costs of healthcare and college tuitions have far outpaced inflation since 1977.
“And allow me to point out that the costs of healthcare and college tuitions have far outpaced inflation since 1977.”
Why do you think that is?
Government is heavily involved in both.
Allan, we find some agreement here. A disproportionate ratio of student debt is held by dropouts of For-Profit Colleges. For-Profit Colleges are parasites on the Federal Student Loan system. Academic degrees from For Profit Colleges are essentially worthless to most employers. Yet these schools continue preying on minorities with high-pressure tactics to make them take out student loans.
Obama recognized For-Profit Colleges as the parasites they are. And his administration embarked on an agenda to put them out of business. Obama nearly succeeded, too. But under Trump, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has put out the welcome mat for For-Profits. Like we really ‘need’ them sucking student loan money! Trump doesn’t mind. He ran a For-Profit College himself which was sued out of business.
I don’t think it is worthwhile discussing this with you because I don’t think you understand what a non-profit is. It is a tax designation.
Here are the universities with the highest endowment. All of them receive federal funds in multiple ways. Think about it and get back to me.
The top 10 largest college endowments: [CNN]
1. Harvard University: $36.4 billion
2. Yale University: $25.6 billion
3. University of Texas system: $24.1 billion
4. Princeton University: $22.7 billion
5. Stanford University: $22.2 billion
6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: $13.5 billion
7. Texas A&M University system: $10.5 billion
8. Northwestern University: $10.2 billion
9. University of Pennsylvania: $10.1 billion
10. University of Michigan: $10 billion
Those are the 10 of the most distinguished schools. And ‘yes’, they have big endowments. ..So what..?? They should offer free admission to students in need? They probably do to a certain extent. You think Federal student loans should be discontinued on the basis of this list..??
The reason for endowments is what? Why are students directly or indirectly getting government money for attending when I have heard Harvard has enough money to educate all students for 50 years without charge. These endowments continue to get bigger.
This should tell you something is wrong, but apparently, you are unable to see there is a problem.
The reason for the endowments is to pay fixed costs, finance research, and provide scholarships.
The real problem with higher education is that it’s financed in such a way that induces bloat, the degree architecture also induces bloat. And of, course it sells itself to a wider and wider audience whose counterparits a generation ago got along quite well without it.
The Kochs don’t want to pay for serfs to be educated nor for them to have health care. Since the majority disagrees with them, they created the “freedom” PR campaign as bait and switch for oligarchy. And, they bought political policy via politicians like Pence, Grietens and Scott Walker and the politicians of ALEC.
Obama recognized For-Profit Colleges as the parasites they are.
How are they parasites in a way other institutions are not?
I’ve stated precisely how I think general income taxes should be structured elsewhere on the thread. The utility of general income taxes is for purposes of income re-distribution. In collecting revenue for other purposes, specialty income taxes, value-added taxes, final sales taxes, and real property taxes can be used.
You are aware that employer-provided health insurance does not usually fall under the rubric of ‘taxable income’?
The price of higher education services generally rises pari passu with nominal incomes. Trouble is, in 1928, only about 6% of a typical age cohort enrolled in colleges, universities, or professional schools. Another increment enrolled in nursing schools, normal schools, or junior colleges. in 1980, the share of each cohort enrolling might have been 22% or therabouts. Now, north of 40% do, with another increment enrolling in community college. To some extent, higher education has captured vocational training which used to be found in workplaces and to some extent vocations have grown more specialized and skill-intensive. However, a great deal of this is a process of chasing after positional goods, and that’s just a waste. Vigorous public action to reduce higher education enrollments is imperative.
As for medical care, the revenue of service providers in the realm of medical and long term care is as we speak equal to 14% of personal income in this country. From about 1940 to about 1995, this metric marched relentlessly upward. Over 20-odd years, the revenue stream of such enterprises has tended to increase pari passu with nominal incomes. To some extent this is cost disease and to some extent this is a consequence of inefficiencies brought about by use of 3d party payment. People’s medical costs are not transparent to them.
Nutchacha, I got you figured out. You’re a Libertarian fundamentalist and math nerd. The two usually go together. Libertarianism is a form of rebellion common to math nerds.
Math nerds think that economics can governed by set rules like mathematics. But Economics is actually one of the Social Sciences. Most Libertarians don’t know that, however. So they continue mouthing debunked ideas like “Tax cuts pay for themselves”, or “Every dollar spent on government is a dollar less for investment”.
Luckily the Millennial generation is leery of the Koch Bros and likely to tune them out.
“Math nerds think…”
Peter, you don’t seem to have a rudimentary knowledge of science or economics.
Paul, Congress would have to approve the export of uranium to Canada. Did Paul Ryan approve?
Peter Hill – they used someone else’s export license. You have to keep up.
Nutchacha, I got you figured out. You’re a Libertarian fundamentalist and math nerd.
That’s uproariously funny. I’ve wasted hours and hours throwing darts at libertarians on sites like Marginal Revolution.
Peter, what you’re referring to as ‘libertarian fundamentalism’ is what is referred to by ordinary people as ‘conventional microeconomics’.
Laffer’s curve drawn on a cocktail napkin appealed to the rich so they tried to get some substantiation for the notion and failed. Then, Rogoff and Rhinehardt pleased the rich with their notion, which was political disguised as economic, which again, was a fail.
Hill is correct. The Kochs are loathed by millennials despite the money Charles and David throw at valueless administrators like those at Catholic University of America (social Darwinism should be anathema to believers in Christ). The Center for Media and Democracy has a great site doing good work…UnKochMyCampus. And, there’s a second group, Kochs Off Campus.
Laffer is a macro-economist whose published work specialized in the effect of tax policy on business cycles and growth trajectories. We realize you pretty much break the Dunning-Kruger meter, but you could put up a better front. This is getting tedious. In any case, Peter Hill broke it already in this discussion.
Move.
You, Pete Peterson and the Kochs move.
“You, Pete Peterson and the Kochs move.”
I don’t necessarily agree with these people, but we are all happy here. You are not. Move.
Your kind, corrupt a system then tell citizens to leave. Hell no, the corrupters should be forced to be men with no country. Too many middle class and poor gave too much for THEIR nation for the generations that follow to abandon the sacrifice as if it was nothing. From the grave they tell us to fight the oligarchs and repressive governments sidling up next to wealthy American conservatives.
Your Stalinist system rule by whatever the dictator or elite desire. My system rule by law is based on the Constitution and the laws that followed.
Face it Linda, you don’t understand the Constitution and you don’t understand rule by law. You don’t belong in this great country.
“Minimum Wage truly adequate for supporting a single person, let alone a family four.”
Who lives on minimum wage? If you are trying to live on it, then you have made bad choices in your life and it isn’t the fault of the rest of us. Maybe, just maybe they should think about this before having a family of four. Liberals never want to let life choices have consequences.
As a general rule, min wage jobs are held by late-adolescent / young adult populations, by spouses supplementing the family income, and by people who have been hors de combat and are re-entering the labor force.
Some people just do not have much human capital and have low wage work all their lives. You can raise their standard of living by collective purchase of certain services (e.g. medical care, long-term care, schooling, and, in select circumstances, legal services) and through tax rebates. You don’t have to have an elaborate welfare state staffed with social-worker navigators, you don’t have to institute perverse incentives (e.g. paying 20 year old women to have a baby and leave the labor force), and you certainly should not do things which increase the sclerosis of the labor market. If labor law can establish a regime of transparency and regularity of expectations (through such measures as requiring wages be paid in cash and paid at least fortnightly), the name of the game going forward is maintaining fluidity in the labor market. The echt example of an intensely regulated labor market is Spain’s. You don’t wanna go there. If you fix the minimum wage at 10% of mean compensation per worker in the economy as a whole (currently around $4 an hour for an average state, about $3 an hour in Mississippi, about $1.60 an hour in Puerto Rico), you’ll provide a conventional demarcation between paid and volunteer labor without pricing people out of the market.
Jim, we’re talking about small town America here which is often Trump country. When all the factories close and union jobs disappear, workers are reduced to low-wage service jobs. That’s been happening for at least 30 years.
No one over 21 wants to work for minimum wage! But people over 40 often land in low-wage jobs after lay-offs and factory closings.
Actually, the industrial shakeout was earlier. About 1/4 of the population at any one time is employed in crummy service jobs. It’s been that way forever. The novel element therein taking the long view is that those are service jobs and not agricultural work.
Scandinavia experienced the same industrial evolution and “all ships rose”. They didn’t have Koch sleaze driving the redistribution of wealth to the richest 0.1%.
Conservatives describe the impoverishment of American labor as outsourcing when in reality it is the ugly exploitation of workers and avoidance of health and safety precautions.
I don’t think Peter Hill recognizes what a “starting salary” is nor the importance of a “starting salary”.
Allan, could you live on $7.50 per hour? That’s still the minimum wage in about 20 states. Even in smaller cities a cheap, single apartment is going to cost at least $400 per month. And those $7.50 jobs are often limited to 20 hours per week.
Now presumably those jobs are intended for people who aren’t looking for full-time work. But the reality in many towns is that adults who want full-time work are stuck in these jobs for lack of opportunities. This is a serious problem. Studies show that the vast majority of jobs these days are created in the biggest cities.
Then move. You working for $7.50 is not my problem. I stopped working for minimum wage when I was 17.
Jim, I don’t think Peter has grown up. Though he may be a lot more than 17, he seems to still require a parent. Wasn’t that what Michele Obama was talking about the other day? Michele likened the Presidency to a good or bad parent.
Don’t know about that, but his remarks on the decline of manufacturing employment suggest he didn’t live through it.
Peter developed intellectually and morally. The insults of Allan, Insufferable and Nash prove they avoided both.
Wrong Linda. Peter never developed at least regarding the topic at hand. He is naive and has little understanding of economics. He is probably a fine human being that needs to read a bit more on the subject before exposing his ignorance. You, on the other hand, are a lost cause. Your brain ceased functioning decades ago and now you respond reflexively with no need for a brain’s function.
I lived in a slum without government subsidies. The minimum wage is to offer a job to people that are untrained. That minimum wage job provides them experience to move on to a higher paying job. Generally, the minimum wage earner stuck at that wage does not support the household and if he does he receives generous subsidies.
I used to work in excess of 80 hours per week. It is your ideology that denies good jobs to good people. Blame yourself.
“Studies show that the vast majority of jobs these days are created in the biggest cities.”
The biggest cities are Democratic hell for those without much means.
I am in more than one location and I pay for a housekeeper at a rate of $20 per hours. Some pay more and some pay less. The reason that person gets that fee is because the person can do a reasonable job, work when I am not around, is reliable and is honest.
None of these people have degrees. The only thing they have is experience and a good record. You apparently need more guidance than these relatively uneducated people. Additionally, I don’t think they complain as much as you do. By the way, all of them have spouses so the family income is at least double.
My best education was living in a slum. It created a desire never to return.
So according to Allan, “Poverty Builds Character”. And ‘yes’, that idea is straight from the 19th Century. In fact, stories by Charles Dickens often have characters expressing ideas along those lines.
It’s not necessarily that poverty breeds character. One need not be poor to develop character. Your paternalism destroys character.
Allan, I worked with cops and criminals for 15 years. I’ve seen what poverty can do.
You’ve seen what poverty can do? We have all seen what poverty can do, but more importantly, we have seen what paternalism has done. Paternalism creates poverty, breaks up families, leads to out of wedlock pregnancy, and does all sorts of other bad things.
Obama didn’t focus on jobs. That was a major problem.
Paternalists broke up families, by force, in the plantation era. Today, the incarcerations brought on by the private prisons of ALEC which have resulted in the USA as the most imprisoned population in the world, break up families. Same bigoted paternalism/colonialism.
“Paternalists broke up families, by force, in the plantation era. Today, the incarcerations brought on by the private…”
Linda, your comment doesn’t even relate to reality. That is why the brain is needed prior to a reflexive response.
Which was more profitable…working with the cops, or working with the criminals?😉
People are poor because (1) they lack salable skills and (2) they have habits and dispositions which cause trouble on work sites. The same habits and dispositions (e.g. short time horizons) are correlated with criminal behavior. If ‘poverty’ were causing this, there would be a secular decline in the quantum of criminality as society grew more affluent. It’s difficult to detect any temporal relationship between real income levels and crime rates. If by ‘poverty’, you mean a deficit of positional goods, there not a blessed thing you can do about that.
Crime rates and income inequality have been researched and causal relationship established.
Crime rates and income inequality have been researched and causal relationship established.
No ‘causal’ relationship has been established except in the imagination of the worst sort of hack sociologist.
So according to Allan, “Poverty Builds Character”. A
He didn’t say that. Reading comprehension. It’s great stuff.
The effect of raising the minimum wage is to price some people out of the labor market, and that is why you should have only a token minimum wage.
You must be a Libertarian fundamentalist. In a major recession we’d all wind up in ‘token wage’ jobs and the recession would never end because no one would have the buying power to purchase consumer basics. Dumb idea..!!
You must be a Libertarian fundamentalist. I
No, just a chap with an economics degree, FWIW, though just a course in elementary microeconomics would tell you as much. The economists you see arguing for increases in the minimum wage are union shills talking book and avocational opinion journalists attempting to make the case for a social goal while pretending to make an argument derived from economic reasoning.
In a major recession we’d all wind up in ‘token wage’ jobs and the recession would never end because no one would have the buying power to purchase consumer basics.
I have no clue which addle-pated high-school history teacher peddled this vulgarized version of J. A Hobson to you, but you need to just forget what he told you.
A decline in real wages (to a modest degree) is a crucial component to healing the labor market in a recession. It’s usually accomplished by a moderate inflation, the maintenance of which has been policy in this country since 1982. A moderate inflation is advisable because economic actors seldom cut nominal wages for reasons which are outside the ken of the usual tools of economic modeling. Wages are sticky-downward. This was remarked upon by J.M. Keynes and has been a phenomenon obvious in American economic life for nearly 90 years.
A job is created when an employer and an aspirant employee find each other for a mutually-beneficial transaction. Allowing for the usual information deficits in markets, economic actors are not going to willingly employ someone whose costs are chronically in excess of the benefit he brings the firm. You can enact a wage floor and enforce it. What that does is induce employers to hire only to the point where marginal benefit equals or exceeds the floor. That means they hire fewer workers. What did the Roosevelt Administration do during the Depression that was terribly injurious: they enacted and attempted to enforce an absurdly high minimum wage. The result was an unemployment rate which averaged 18% of the workforce even as production and income levels were rapidly improving. There were other causes which generated that sclerosis, but the Roosevelt-era minimum wage laws were an important component of that.
Peter, you are aware that the decline in personal income during recessions is typically on the order of 1%. The very worst recession in the post-war period saw a decline on the order of perhaps 5%. You fancy that’s going to be expressed in large swaths of the population receiving a cut in their nominal wage rate large enough to take them to the statutory minimum? Are you aware that mean cash compensation per worker in this economy amounts to about $32 an hour?
In the first 2 years of the Great Depression deflation took over and became a death spiral; a whirlpool where prices and wages went swirling downwards. And during the last recession, deflation almost became an issue again.
Henry Morgenthau FDR’s Treasury Secretary and friend said: “I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot!”
Unemployment reached a high of 23% just before FDR took office. On the eve of Pearl Harbor it was 9%. Now that latter number is still not good. But it’s a whole lot better than 23%.
Peter Hill – 9% is pretty bad when most of the difference is people working for the government.
Paul C. Schulte,..
The U.S. started military conscription in 1940….by Dec. 7, 1941 the military had grown from about 1.4 million to 2.7 million.
That’s out of a population of only 130 million back then, so the “war economy” build up …..arms production and manpower…started well before Pearl Harbor.
The increased draft calls during the heighy of the Vietnam War had an impact on the unemployment rate by taking servicemen “out of the job market”, but the effect on the economy in the pre-WWII builtup was far greater.
The lowest unemployment rate was 1.4% in 1944.
Correction….I think that 1940-1941 increase in active duty military personnel was from 400,000 to 1,700,000 by time time of Pearl Harbor….the percentage of the increase was larger than I previously stated.
You seem to be making the argument that the secretary of Treasury was wrong. Do you think he was? We have the extremes of numbers, but none in between. I wonder why? I’ll wait for the full set of numbers and your citation.
Unemployment data are produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Their online data do not incorporate data for years prior to 1947.
The convention at the time was to include WPA employees, among others, in the tabulation of the unemployed.
Thank you, I thought it was something like that but wasn’t sure. That is why I asked Peter for his citation since he was providing numbers on the extreme dates.I wanted him to justify his argument.
What does that have to do with your original contention?
Hill, your comment earned a drop of the mic in the faces of Allan and Insufferable.
Obama was wrong. What matters is lawyers, guns and money.
Lord get me out of this.
Turley’s illustration of how the rich pay most of the taxes reminds me of comedian Pat Paulson’s skit where he explained that the main culprits in forest fires were the trees. No ‘rich’ person is rich on his or her own. Without the low paid work force the rich wouldn’t be so rich. Compared to the rest of the rest of the industrialized, capital based, societies, the biggest difference is that so few make so much. That those few pay most of the taxes only follows as proper. If there was a huge middle class that earned much more and an upper class that earned much less, then there would be a reflected balance in who pays taxes in the US. This post of Turley is of the same mentality of Jim Inhofe’s explanation of how ice melting doesn’t raise the ocean levels-by using an ice cube in a glass of water; while not taking into count that almost all of the ice in the world that might or might not melt, is not in the ocean but found in one, two, and three mile deep ice caps on the Antarctic continent and Greenland. Anybody who earns millions of dollars a year should give thanks that they can pay lots of taxes.
‘Food Stamps are essentially a Federal subsidy to big box retailers (Walmart) and fast food restaurants; allowing them to pay inadequate wages.’–This is also one of the problems with health care insurance. The American disaster of parasitical, predatory, private health care insurance that costs five + times what it should because our health costs are seen as a consumer commodity and subject to ‘what the market will bear’ rules; is also a benefit to employers who can offer low wages and cheap health insurance benefits. If everyone paid into a state or federal system, as do our peer nations who rank in the 24 places above the US in health care, employers would be forced to raise wages. Low minimum wages and
Here, here. Nailed it.
Isaac just can’t stop making sense.
Oligopoly describes American health care or, monopoly in the case of Epipen and Skirpeli.
HERE IS A GRAPH SHOWING THE MINIMUM WAGE IN MOST STATES.
http://time.com/4274938/minimum-wage-state-map/
“So why can’t red state residents get smart on this issue?”
The four largest states are NY, California both blue and Texas, Florida both red. Take note how Liberals are moving from blue to red.
The 4 largest states are California, Texas, Florida and New York. New York hasn’t been number 1 since the 1960 census.
I didn’t say NY was the largest state. Do you have trouble reading? “The four largest states are…” I didn’t list them in any particular order. I separated them by political colors.
Ideally, one’s tax liability would be calculated according to the following formula:
(r x t) – (d x c), where ‘r’ is value between 0 and 1 constituting a common marginal rate for the whole population, ‘t’ is one’s total personal income (in cash and in kind), ‘d’ is equal to the number of legally-defined dependents one has plus 1, and ‘c’ is a dollar value calculated each year by state and federal treasuries according to a formula for which the principal argument is the personal-income-per-capita in the United States as a whole or in the jurisdiction in question. The product of this formula would be negative for a great many people, and such people would receive cash rebates, with the qualification that one’s total rebate would be capped at a particular % of one’s earned income unless one were of Social Security age or had been adjudicated as disabled.
Such a system would envelop and replace the Earned Income Tax Credit. If you enacted it, you could readily eliminate all means-tested programs which subsidize mundane expenditure – i.e. SNAP and other nutrition subsidies, housing subsidies, gas and electric subsidies, and open-ended doles for those neither elderly nor disabled (e.g. TANF). You could also hack away economic efficiencies derived from taxing one economic sector more leniently than another (oil and real estate have long been the primary beneficiaries there).
Nii, does your proposal entail no deductions for anything other than the number of dependents? If so, then wrap it up. I’ll take it home with me straight away. Adjusting for per-capita income on a state-by-state basis is probably the most practical. But setting up something like metropolitan statistical areas for measurement of per-capita income might be fairer. One wonders whether that might salve the political fault lines between urban versus rural segments of the electorate.
Wait a second. I just reread the fine print. Value “r” is a common marginal rate for the whole population. That’s what-his-name’s flat-tax proposal. You know The Congressman from Texas. What’s-his-name. I no longer like it. Make value ‘r’ vary by income quintiles or deciles or more, if you like. The more segments, the smaller the difference between one rate to the next.
Diane, this second response of yours popped into your head as soon as the plan didn’t appear to punish those that produce even if it were to provide more money to the lowest 80%.
Typical leftist. Punish success.
It doesn’t seem to occur to her that most of the population gets a net rebate and the average assessment on the rest as a % of a household’s income begins at 0% and asymptotically approaches whatever the common marginal rate is (I’m thinking maybe 30%). You don’t need a multiplicity of marginal rates to incorporate progressivity in your tax system.
Actually, the attractiveness of your (d x c) deduction from taxable income (assuming that that would be the only deduction) is what distracted me from your (r x t) common marginal rate.
For the State of Mississippi:
(0.30 x $40,000) – (3 x $21,000) = Neg. $51,000 (rebate)?
(0.30 x $86,000) – (3 x $21,000) = Neg. $37,200 (rebate)?
(0.30 x $210,000) – (3 x $21000) = 0
(0.30 x $300,000) – (3 x $21,000) = $27,000 = 9% effective
(0.30 x $1,000,000) – (3 x $21,000) = $237,000 = 23.7% effective
I require more information about capping the rebate as a percentage earned income. Please?
For the State of Maryland:
(0.30 x $75,000) – (3 x $36,000) = Neg. $85,500 (rebate)?
(0.30 x $86,000) – (3 x $36,000) = Neg. $82,200 (rebate)?
(0.30 x $360,000) – (3 x $36,000) = 0
(0.30 x $450,000) – (3 x $36,000) = $27,000 = 6% effective
(0.30 x $1,000,000) – (3 x $36,000) = $192,000 = 19.2% effective
I require more information about the variance in effective tax rates between wealthier states versus poorer states. Please?
Taxes are not punishments. Taxes are civic duties. Allan wants to contract with the lowest 80% for national defense services, then stiff his contractors just like his dementor, Trump.
P. S. You were no use to me at remembering what’s his name’s name. (Dick Armey)
https://www.csmonitor.com/1995/0602/02082.html
Taxes become punishment when one recognizes they are being targeted for more taxation based on the fact they are rich. That the bottom 80% pays only 10% of federal income taxes says a lot, though you prefer to hide your head in the sand.
How do you know he stiffed his contractors? You don’t. Why would anyone work again for one that doesn’t pay what was promised? There is no doubt that there were disputes as to the final draw. That happens all the time, but that is not stiffing anyone. A lot of times contractors haven’t met their obligations and won’t. That obligation is turned into a penalty that sometimes ends up in court.
What we do know is that whenever Trump wants to build there are loads of contractors willing to take the bid despite listening to your uneducated rants about how Trump stiffed contractors.
Charles Murray wrote about that and he is the devil according to many leftists (that have never even read his books or listened to him) so they have to conclude that your formula or any others of such nature exist only to deprive the poor even if it is giving them money.
The left should stop studying basket weaving and toe counting in college.
I don’t recall if Murray provided some type of formula or not, do you?
No clue. I’ve suggested a variant of Milton Friedman’s negative income tax. Don’t think Murray writes much on taxation.
I read Milton Friedman on the negative income tax. I think Charles Murray talked about something of this nature in his book Coming Apart. I don’t know why the left hates him so much especially when he recognizes many of the things they are concerned about.
I guess it is because the left isn’t as concerned about these issues as he is and uses these issues to garner votes, not to solve them.
Murray was an effective critic of programs in which they were invested. Later, he began peddling contentious theses regarding the relationship between heredity and psychological variables and psychological variables and life-trajectories.
There’s a great deal to criticize about Murray’s work, but journalists and Linda-bots haven’t the chops for that, academics writing way out of area are, well, out of area, and academics within a certain zone are determined only to engage in peer-to-peer criticism. Since Murray is a social and political dissident, he is by definition not a ‘peer’ and cannot be the subject of conscientious criticism. You ever notice how David Benson in his various personas almost never makes a serious point on any issue? Same principle.
Murray talked about different relationships, but I don’t think in the fashion you mean. Perhaps you can give an example referring to heredity and one of his books. I have heard so many comments about Murray’s books where the commenter never read the book, but has been quoted over and over again.
One can criticize the works of anyone even without knowing what that person wrote but what we have to look at is his logic and the studies he used along with his methodologies. I find him very impressive and prescient.
“David Benson in his various personas almost never makes a serious point on any issue?”
I agree, even in the discussion of global warming where he presumed himself an expert. The most serious point he made was that there was a book written by Weart. He strikes me as a librarian of empty vessels.
Federal taxes? Local property taxes? Sales taxes? User taxes? and so on?
I’ll admit I’ll have to find more of so called study to see how it likely was put together. But if Landlords pay 100% taxes on property – but do so via their renters, how is the actual allocation of those taxes calculated? Anyone can find numerous examples to the other side of the debate that the rich and our propaganda host might not have reason to balance.
The reality is that income inequality is the biggest problem in the USA. And trumps tax scam, or any trickle down/pee or poop down economics will only make worse.
I wonder how that carried interest loophole someone ran on is doing? I would not be surprised if instead of correcting it after november elections republicons instead eliminate all investment taxes. They have already shown their willingness to blow up the budget to favor their mega donors if those donors threaten them with not receiving more bribes……oops, i mean campaign contributions.
Trumpytaxscammer captured the GOP immorality, perfectly.
You guys are fools. The Trump tax bill is all about financialization just as 99% of the Dem policies are as well. Here we see the foolishness of our phony party politics duolopoly on full display. One can understand why sincere Democrats and Bernie Bros like Seth Rich are (were) angry at the stage managed phony primary system of the democrats.
“The reality is that income inequality is the biggest problem in the USA.”
Totally wrong. If I discover a chemical that makes gasoline in cars go 4X further and by virtue of taking a tiny percentage off that saving I become a billionaire are you better or worse off?
According to the way you think you and the country are worse off. That, of course, would be a ridiculous assumption.
When do we get to take delivery of Allan’s straw-man automobile?
Has Allan cleared his technological breakthrough with the oil industry?
Will Allan make his technological breakthrough as a direct result of income inequality?
Diane, as usual, you haven’t thought through the issue. How did the discovery make you worse off? You can’t answer these questions because your ideology immediately sets you down the wrong path. Your ideology doesn’t permit you to think.
What discovery? The Straw-Man Combustion Engine? How can anyone actually be better off because The Straw-Man Combustion Engine could potentially be invented someday?
I provided a hypothetical to make it easy. That hypothetical was very clear and could represent any one of many people, but there was no name for you to look up to tell you how to respond using a leftist vision.
Before providing a name so that we can keep this discussion on track I’ll repeat the question and maybe you will try and answer. The question is one that is quite possible so go ahead and try to answer.
If I discover a chemical that makes gasoline in cars go 4X further and by virtue of taking a tiny percentage off that saving I become a billionaire are you better or worse off?
The Preacher and the Slave, by Joe Hill
(sung to the tune The Sweet By and By)
Long-haired preachers come out every night
Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right
But when asked about something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet
You will eat, bye and bye
In that glorious land above the sky
Work and pray, live on hay
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die (that’s a lie)
And the starvation army they play
And they sing and they clap and they pray
Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they tell you when you’re on the bum
Holy rollers and jumpers come out
They holler, they jump, and they shout
Give your money to Jesus they say
He will cure all diseases today
If you fight hard for children and wife
Try to get something good in this life
You’re a sinner and bad man, they tell
When you die you will sure go to hell
Workingmen (folk) of all countries unite
Side by side we for freedom will fight
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we’ll sing this refrain
You will eat, bye and bye
When you’ve learned how to cook and to fry
Chop some wood, twill do you good
And you’ll eat in the sweet bye and bye (that’s no lie)
Pity the wealthy for the burden of paying federal income taxes. Te title of your article is bogus and should read Top 20% of income housholds pay 87% of FEDERAL income taxes. While you stated at the bottom of the article that it doesn’t include state or sales taxes, you are ignoring many other taxes as well. How about FICA? Those poor wealthy don’t have to pay any of those burdensome taxes after they react about $120,000 in earnings. Thus, someone earning a $1,000,000 a year pays the same FICA taxes as someone earning $120,000 a year,
Or put another way, the poor slob earning $60,000 payes half as much FICA as someone earning $10,000,000. Do you want to talk percentages? What percentage of revenue from fees, fines and excise taxes? Where is your pity the wealthy studies on those numbers? For the same crime a wealthy person serves much less time than a poor person. Any stats on that inequality? How about the tax discrepancy between the wealthy heir living on capital gains and the schmuck who works for a living? If wealthy capital gains hier ‘earns’ $415,000 and worker bee earns $50,000 the tax rate on worker bee income is 25% while the tax rate on the wealthy capital gains income is taxed at less than 20%. I won’t even mention who offshores more profit; the worker bee or the wealthy heir.
Please, professor, you are starting to sound like a Fox and Friends promo. Lots of misleading headlines that ignore reality for the sake of eyeballs..
Social Security benefits are tied to SS contributions; i.e., payroll taxes paid in during the working years.
If you raise the taxable ceiling to $1,000,000, are you ( and the SS System) prepared to pay a proportionately higher benefit?
I’ll take that question for Lloyd, Tom. No. Meanwhile, and speaking only for myself, I might be willing to consider means testing for Social Security benefits depending upon the details.
Means testing for Social Security – good plan. Hanging Pete Peterson in effigy, also a good plan. (He’s spent $1/2 billion and counting to destroy Social Security.
Thanks, L4D….Maybe we could also go to “means testing” IRA and 401K benefits.
A family contributing $10,000 a year can reasonably expect a much higher return than a family that contributes $2,000
a year.
We could “means test” that $10,000 a year family in determining/capping their payout at retirement.
Be consistent Nash, the rich deride government programs- don’t take from them.
I sometimes think that Linda can not top herself in the “dumb comments department”.
She always proves me wrong, on that point.
I have no interest in nationalizing private investment for retirement income. Wait. Let me think about that one some more. I seem to be hearing what sounds like a great cacophonous din in my mind’s ear. And it’s not from collective whimpers. More like collective BANGS. It could be the long dreaded war of all against all. Or not. What does Gnash think?
She spelled cacophonous wrong. Gnash still looks about right for orthographic purposes.
O! Bother! Who changed the spelling of cacophony? And when?
Well, L4D, are you under investigation for anything?
My guess, offhand, is that you’re hearing flashbang grenades, deployed to disorient you in a SWAT-style raid.
Thanks, Ptom, for not mentioning the oligarch drones.
“means testing for Social Security benefits depending upon the details.”
It always depends on the details, but you don’t know what they are today or why they are what they are so you don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about.
Social security payments are proportionate to the amount of money earned, but there is additional money in the payments to increase lower-income citizens. Higher income citizens are taxed on 85% of their social security payments.
Means testing already exists. The worker only pays in half of social security taxes. The company (business) puts in the other half.
Why should capital gains be taxed at all when it is from money that has already been taxed? How does de-incentivizing the rich to reinvest their already taxed money by taxing it more help the guy who would benefit from that reinvestment? Just admit that you are resentful of the rich and you want to steal their property to give to the lazy.
First up- stop the financial sector from dragging down GDP by an estimated 2%.
First up- stop the financial sector from dragging down GDP by an estimated 2%.
You have no clue what you’re talking about.
Nutchacha…
– I was typing my comment as you posted yours….didn’t see it till after I had posted mine.
I think you should keep making that claim another hundred tines or so, without providing any supporting evidence.
Is that “2% drag on GDP” claim the same kind of “proof” you provide from Prof. Gilen’s theories?
Why should capital gains be taxed at all when it is from money that has already been taxed?
It hasn’t already been taxed.
The trouble with regimes in taxing capital gains is that liability has generally been assessed on nominal values rather than real values. For some perverse reason, the Bush-pere administration suggested corrective for this by cutting the marginal rate on capital gains instead of calculating real gains by indexing purchase prices. The marginal rate on real capital gains should be the same as the marginal rate on ordinary income. Ideally, when you had capital losses, you’d be accorded a credit with the IRS you would work off with future income or capital gains tax liability.
Well. You make arguments and take positions Turley never made or took.
Maybe it’s time to eliminate income and other taxes. We should replace them with a progressive Wealth tax.
It’s wrong, imo, that lower income people pay so much in fees – for licenses, tolls, needless auto inspections etc.
The big venture “philanthropist” Bill Gates lives in the state with the most regressive tax system in the nation. He opposes increases in the minimum wage, He disparages pensions. He spent money to defeat judges who had rendered verdicts favorable to public education. Like the Waltons he spent $1 bil. to corporatize and privatize public education. The Waltons are predatory, but Gates and Zuckerberg took it to a new level. They are investors in the largest international, for-profit seller of schools-in-a-box.
Tax deductions that should be eliminated (1) churches, mosques, temples (now that they can promote political candidates) (2) philanthropies that destroy common goods (3) strings-attached donations to universities (4) donations to universities that have $750,000,000 endowments, especially those that are legacy admission (what rationale is there for Kushner to buy a slot at Harvard for his son and get a tax deduction for it)?
Microsoft cofounders Bill Gates and Paul Allen are both from Seattle.
As far as I know, they both still reside there.
Gates also backed an initiative or referendum in support of a Washington state income tax.
How much money did Gates spend to get the referendum passed? It’s easy to garner good PR when he’s paying a team to get it for him.
You can look it up yourself.
The $30 Billion he’s given away to charities is probably a PR stunt as well.
Another post by JT that proves he is working up his base…..sad, very sad.
Lloyd, aside from learning the difference between federal and state (plus local) taxes you should learn to get the numbers straight.
1% pay 40% of income tax
10% pay 68% of income tax
20% pay 90% of income tax
80% pay 10% of income tax
That is very progressive taxation.
Let us take NY taxes. In addition to federal taxes, the riches pay 13.5% NY tax. The poor pay none.
Let us take federal estate taxes: There is no federal estate tax for those leaving a good sum of money to their children. Those with a lot of money in their estate pay ~ a 50% tax.
Let us take states where there is no income tax.
In many of those states, there is a deduction that comes off the price of a home and then the rest of the home is taxed. Use 2% tax rate.
A person being taxed on a $100,000 homestead pays $2,000
A person being taxed on a $5 Million homestead pays $100,000
Let us take sales tax using a 10% number for my convenience.
A person that nets $40,000 and spends every penny pays $4,000
A person that is in the Top 1% -20% and spends $1Million pays $100,000
I don’t pity the rich, but I don’t try to demonize them. Do you wish to restate your complaints regarding taxation?
Always a classic worth repeating…
Ten men go out for beer. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. He said, “Since you are all such good customers, I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.”
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men — the paying customers?
How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share”? They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay!
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings). The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four
continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
“I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He
pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!”
“Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!”
“That’s true!!”shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2 ? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important.
They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up any more. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
22,
Is the bar at Mar a Largo? If so, the drinkers are imbibing on the corporate welfare tab. If the bar is in Main Street America, the drinkers can afford less and less beer.
Linda’s posting from Cupertino I bet
Can you explain that nonsense?
The tax will be greater at Mar a Largo for the same drink on Main Street America.
Or putting it another way is the rich are ordering very expensive drinks and leaving the bar for someone else to pay the tab. The rich are entitled ya know.
What insight are we to learn from this? That the more you earn, the more you pay in taxes? That it’s unfair for rich people to not be taxed at a higher percent than presently?
The economy grew faster when we had a stronger middle class – and the top marginal income tax rate was 90%.
Since businesses are the major beneficiaries of our high numbers of new immigrants, they and their owners and investors should bear a higher percent of the costs of an exploding population growth. BTW, Trump knew very well that neither Congress nor Mexico would pay for a wall. Businesses won’t allow their puppets in Congress to stop illegal immigration. Legalize it, maybe – but end it – never.
Predatory business always offloads its expenses if they can get away with it. The U.S. oligarchy, with the help of hypocritical evangelists, enabled the richest 0.1% to get away with it.
In red states, the politicians are getting ready for primaries, planting oxymoronic lawn signs like, “Principled Conservative” and “Family Values Republican”.
Maybe another special counsel should be appointed to investigate the role of “the evangelists” in shaping the latest tax bill.
She has a set of macros two right these posts. She hit the wrong one.
From the Tax Foundarion. – Those fabled 90 percent tax rates only bit at incomes over $200,000, the equivalent of more than $2 million in today’s dollars. As Greenberg notes, the tax may have only applied to 10,000 families.
I’ve been a long believer that if you don’t pay fed taxes, than you should not be allowed to vote.
How Jim Crow of you.
Linda – how racist of you to think that only blacks do not pay income taxes.
The donor class’ campaign of voter suppression and gerrymandering isn’t limited by race. Nor, have they isolated their impoverishment agenda to people of color.
Linda – it must be hell to live the life of a perpetual victim. Someday you need to take responsibility for your own actions.
I guess in Linda’s world she feels she has a right to have a voice in any organization that she does participate in. People who don’t pay taxes have no skin in the game so it only makes sense that they should have no say in how that game is played let alone how much the ones who do participate pay.
Still waiting on here answer about the fire dept.
I am less of a victim than anyone I can imagine. I was born in a country that had leaders who fostered merit and hard work and who understood we all rise together and that the vulnerable have dignity. They were patriots. More recently, the Kochtopus and tech tyrants have replaced democracy with oligarchy and with social Darwinism. I grew up in a country where both political parties demonstrated values consistent with humanity, before legitimized torture, Dick Cheney and Erik Prince. I grew up in a country before the corruption of the Lewis Powell Memo and the Paul Weyrich training manual for conservatives. I want the generations that follow to rout the Frankenstein that the GOP has become so that they do not become victims of the concentrated wealth that Picketty explained.
What country were you born in?
Linda – your very words mark you as a “victim.” TAKE CONTROL.
Linda, if you were lucky enough to be born in this country did you forget the Robber Barons? You sound like you were brought up as a red diaper baby that never got over her love for Stalin.
No, but she wasn’t ‘born into that country’. She was born into this one. The country she’s referring to is a cartoon manufactured by Paul Krugman.
A red diaper baby is a child born in the US to a family that were members of the communist party.
I bet you backed Billary Lock stock and barrel and in a Bernie lead Dem party you would be cut loose to earn your keep in the private sector.
Anyhow how do these people still not understand that the neoconservative war of aggression in iraq and all its rephrehensible follies was squarely supported by the democrats, last time I checked, with a few lone standouts like Russ Feingold the exceptions proving the rule?
And they still “crow” about it today
“impoverishment agenda to people of color.”
That is what the Democratic policies do to blacks.
First, the Democrats enslaved blacks.
Then the Democrats burned crosses on the lawns of blacks and passed Jim Crow Laws.
Then the Democrats insulted blacks telling them they couldn’t survive in a free society without their help.
Then the Democrats destroyed their families and became more and more paternalistic to black families as if black people weren’t their equals.
What the Democrats wanted from blacks was either their unpaid labor or their votes.
The conservative plot – voter suppression and gerrymandering.
Actually, both parties do that, but the real experts are the leftists and Stalinist type that pack ballot boxes and encourage illegal voting.
When did Putin become a Stalinist?
Putin is a dictator. Stalin was a dictator. Both have a lot of similarities. They are and were the problems of the Russian people except when they extend past their borders.
There is a certain philosophy that dictators follow. A Stalinist like yourself doesn’t bother very much with things like our Constitution.
They don’t have any similarities other than ruling Russia. Putin’s a machine boss. Dmitri Simes referred to the Russian political order as ‘managed pluralism’. His worst offenses would have been racked up suppressing the Chechen insurrection, and in that case most of the blood was spilled during his predecessor’s regime. There’s a lot to criticize about his regime, but he has yet to produce dead bodies in six and seven figure job lots and yet to subjugate 1/3 of a continent.
“They don’t have any similarities other than ruling Russia. ”
That is a debatable point. They were both dictators and have similarities and differences. To assume their only similarity was that of ruling Russia is wrong. I was focusing in on basic personalities not what they did during their own respective time periods. Both seem to have no problem in killing though Stalin caused the deaths of tens of millions and appeared to be more bloodthirsty.
Linda, I really want you to answer this. Are you a member of your local fire department?
I don’t agree with Jim22, but he has a point. We should all be invested in this society, but apparently, you believe no one need be invested in this society yet they should vote. Some of your friends even believe illegal aliens have a right to vote in this country.
Labor, creating productivity increases which are stolen by the unproductive wealthy, like the GDP-dragging financial sector, should be more invested, by reclaiming their money from the thieves.
You don’t have the slightest idea what productivity actually means in the economic sense. As an example, a backhoe increases productivity when digging holes. Labor isn’t creating that productivity, the backhoe is and that means that fewer people need to be hired.
She also hasn’t a clue what the purpose of financial intermediation is. She also fancies casino bankers are Republicans. The sorosphere agencies don’t figure they need to pay top-dollar for their jammers. Any idiot will do.
You should not have posted this. Linda will be suicidal.
Slaves don’t pay taxes by definition.
You’re not enslaved. Just another harridan with a weak sense of personal agency.
I don’t assume that you, Nash, are rich and don’t contribute to GDP. You shouldn’t assume I don’t contribute to GDP and that I am poor.
Linda,…Try directing your comments to the right person, stupid.
When racist American oligarchs and Russian oligarchs, who plot to create dissension based on race, both have minions posting comments at the same blog site, the minions should expect to be seen as interchangeable.
She is enslaved by her ideology.
87 minus 52 equals 35.
52 minus 20 equals 32.
If 20% of households earn 52% of the income, then why feign “shock” that 52% of the income earned accounts for 87% of the income taxes paid?????
If 87% of the income taxes paid come from households earning 52% of the income, and household earning 52% of the income are only 20% of households, then why feign “shock” that 52% of the income earned accounts for 87% of income taxes paid?????
And the top 1% pay 38% of all income taxes, but account for only 20% of total AGI.
By “the numbers game”, they are overpaying.
Taxing slaves (and, denying them voting rights), stripping them of medical care and education- the Koch drive to feudalism. Proud moment for Turley and his family, supporting 1 in 5 U.S. children, living in poverty.
Taxing slaves, exactly what your ideology leads to. I am no friend of the Koch’s but they have advanced the American standard of living. Without these producers we would be a third world nation.
Yet, America looks more like a 3rd world nation to the 40% of Americans with wealth equivalent to 6 Walton heirs. And, Scandinavia looks like a westernized, developed nation. If conservatives and Russians have their way, the US. will move closer to the repressive Putin model where people spend 50% of their income on food, with the oligarchs telling them that the solution is to eat less.
Here you are defaming the Russian ethnicity again. Can she do this? I object. What other ethnicities can we defame here, just Russians or what?
I will agree with you America looks like a third world nation. Because it is filled with third world people. It would be great if it looked more like Scandanavia. That is minus the refugees infesting the major cities there. I suspect the only thing some people like about Scandanavia is the socialism, and are stupid enough to think a bunch of Somalis could run it the same way as Swedes .Well, if the Swedes want to find out, they can keep letting them in, and it will be a darn shame.
Linda, Go to Venezuela or any other communist nation and tell them this bunk so they laugh in your face.
Alan,..
Venezuela may be a good place for her,,given her claims about income inequality.
In terms of income inequality, “New U.N. report shows Venezuela to be the most equal country in Latin America”.- greenleft.org, Jan. 2, 2017
This was reported elsewhere, too.
The UN Commission on Latin America is said to be “very prestigious”….they are the ones who gave first place to Venezuela.
You move Allan and take the oligarchs with you.
They have “econonic equality” for all, so they don’t allow oligarchs in the country.
Besides, you “know” and have stated that those oligarchs have a system here where they’re holding everybody else in slavery…..they would never give up that absolute piwer you claim they have over almost all Americans.
“economic equality”
I like the Constitution in the US. You like the type of government Venezuela has provided its citizens. I’m being nice. I am advising you to move to a place where you and the government are in total agreement. I’ll keep the oligarchs and you can watch people die of starvation.
Paul Ryan and the Kochs are in agreement that Paul should cash his $500,000 check from them to pay for delivery of the tax scam bill.
Likely what is happening there is lobbying that doesn’t please me, but I note if it is your politician being paid off in that legal fashion you find it OK.
You are duplicitous.
LOL the Krotch brothers are capitalist financiers and not feudalists in the slightest bit. Do you even know what that means?
Nowhere near as much as they used to overpay in the good old days. Now let’s get started on effective tax rates for different shares of the income distribution. You know. The effective tax rate for the top income earners has hovered around 30% of their income for a great many decades no matter what the nominal tax rate might have been. Can you say “deductible”? Do you know what “deductible” means?
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/3rdparty/2012/4/taxratesbyincome.jpg
“The effective tax rate for the top income earners has hovered around 30% of their income”
Yet that 1% pays 40% of all income taxes. You should be thanking them.
The people who have more money pay more taxes.
The people who have less money pay less taxes.
For what am I supposed to be thanking the latter?
Having more money? Or paying more taxes?
How about thanking the latter sheltering more money from taxes?
P. S. When did gratitude for mere mortals become compulsory?
When black-letter blasphemers declared themselves gods?
When they died on the cross of Holy Tax Martyrdom?
“P. S. When did gratitude for mere mortals become compulsory?”
Leftists are not gracious people.
Diane, If the bottom 80% pays only 10% of federal income taxes do you believe the system is not progressive?
Do you believe only the richest Americans should pay taxes?
Do you believe a person who refuses to work should earn as much as a person that works?
Should the man that works 80 hours a weak turn over 30 hours of his working income to the man that works only 20 hours a week?
Do you believe the man that studied hard in college to get a high paying job should turn over a portion of his work to the one who never studied and now has a lower income?
Substitute “former” for “latter” and see if it makes more sense.
Don’t worry Diane, we all know that you are all mixed up.
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/Screen%20Shot%202012-04-17%20at%2012.13.01%20PM.png
10% of taxes are paid by 80% of the population. That is probably by far the most progressive tax policy of any nation.
The U.S., on the income inequality continuum, is significantly higher than other developed nations.
Is English your native tongue, are you a bot, or are you just a poor writer? Awkward!
Your statement is not representative of the truth, but what you need to explain is what you found wrong with what I wrote.
“10% of taxes are paid by 80% of the population. That is probably by far the most progressive tax policy of any nation.”
If you need help with the meaning of “deductible”, consult with Ken.
In “the good old days”, most households paid at least some income tax.
One effect of a series of tax cuts is that a sizeable percentage of households now pay either no income tax, or a “negative” income tax due to EIC and/or child tax credit.
Labor receives the lowest share of national income in recorded U.S. history.
It doesn’t, something anyone here could discover just by looking at the data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Since historical shares have varied between 60% and 72% for the last 90 years, there isn’t a grand difference between the ‘lowest share’ and the historical median in any case.
In American history, when was the only time that labor went without a real wage increase for 40 years? Answer, the period between 1980- 2018.
That’s a common meme, and a false one. Something you’d understand if you bothered to examine actual government statistics and not crap peddled by Rachel Maddow.
I’ve never listened to Maddow. I’ve read opinions by Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, economists and political columnists from the right. But, it is the data that is compelling and convincing.
“I’ve read opinions by Robert Reich, Paul Krugman”
There is no accounting for poor taste.
Krugman statements picked up by Politico
Nov. 9 2016
“Now comes the mother of all adverse effects — and what it brings with it is a regime that will be ignorant of economic policy and hostile to any effort to make it work,” Krugman wrote. “So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.”
What data? You’ve never cited any data that wasn’t reframed to and incorporated into a polemical piece.
Truthful information is often cited similarly by people of independent thought. On the other hand, data found at the plethora of fake news sites, data that is distorted, cherry picked, fabricated, for example, articles at YourNewsWire.com, Infowars, Redacted Tonight, Hannity has the sticking power of jelly to a wall.
BTW, Robert Reich is a lapsed law professor. He’s not an economist and never was.
Charles and David Koch have engineering degrees. They exact their social Darwinist economics on the U.S.
through political spending. Bill Gates is a Harvard drop-out. He spent $1 bil. to privatize and corporatize public education (the schools his kids attend rejected his schemes). If we’re talking lapses- the richest 0.1% never had morals from which to lapse.
From Wikipedia; History of top rates:
Historical federal marginal tax rates for income for the lowest and highest income earners in the US.[64]In 1913, the top tax rate was 7% on incomes above $500,000 (equivalent to $12.4 million in 2017 dollars) and a total of $28.3 million was collected.
During World War I, the top rate rose to 77% and the income threshold to be in this top bracket increased to $1,000,000 (equivalent to $19.1 million in 2017 dollars).
Under Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, top tax rates were reduced in 1921, 1924, 1926, and 1928. Mellon argued that lower rates would spur economic growth. By 1928, the top rate was scaled down to 24% along with the income threshold for paying this rate lowered to $100,000 (equivalent to $1.43 million in 2017 dollars).
During the Great Depression and World War II, the top income tax rate rose from pre-war levels. In 1939, the top rate was 75% applied to incomes above $5,000,000 (equivalent to $88 million in 2017 dollars). During 1944 and 1945, the top rate was its all-time high at 94% applied to income above $200,000 (equivalent to $2.78 million in 2017 dollars).
The highest marginal tax rate for individuals for U.S. federal income tax purposes for tax years 1952 and 1953 was 92%.
From 1964-2013, the threshold for paying top income tax rate has generally been between $200,000 and $400,000 (unadjusted for inflation). The one exception is the period from 1982 to 1992 when the topmost income tax brackets were removed. From 1981 until 1986 the top marginal rate was lowered to 50% on $86,000 and up (equivalent to $231 thousand in 2017 dollars). From 1988 to 1990, the threshold for paying the top rate was even lower, with incomes above $29,750 (equivalent to $61.6 thousand in 2017 dollars) paying the top rate of 28% in those years.
Top tax rates were increased in 1992 and 1994, culminating in a 39.6% top individual rate applicable to all classes of income.
Top individual tax rates were lowered in 2004 to 35% and tax rates on dividends and capital gains lowered to 15%, with the Bush administration claiming lower rates would spur economic growth.
Based on the summary of federal tax income data in 2009, with a tax rate of 35%, the highest earning 1% of people paid 36.7% of the United States’ income tax revenue.
T rump Ryan and da turtle MCConell changed da rates so T rump his kleptocrats and da corporations pay far less of their share.
Kind of like “too big to fail…”
Remind me again what the left is complaining about in regards to taxes.
Shannon,..
– Does the brilliant, comprehensive analysis in the 8:26 AM comment answer your question?
No doubt Turley prefers regressive taxes or flat tax rates. For example, he thinks fair taxes are wait staff making $20,000 a year taxed at 10%, with the remaining $18,000 to cover transportation to work, clothing for work, shelter, food, medical care. In comparison, the Walton heir with $20 mil. from dividends, pays $2,000,000 in taxes with $18 mil. left for the Nantucket mansion, trips to islands in the Pacific, a stable of cars and race horses, chefs to prepare caviar, maids to clean, etc.
Putin and his oligarchs and the Kochs agree with Turley’s POV.
Sounds to me like that $18 mil. goes a long way to pay for all of those other jobs.
Why is it the Waltons issue that someone is making $20K a year? Why did the $20k person not work harder in school or might good decisions? What are they doing to change their situation other than having their hand out? The only one keeping them down, is themselves.
make not might.
Jim 22,…
It isn’t the Waltons’ issue.
She just happens to have it in for all of them, even John-Boy.
Work harder like Trump?- inherited $1million, extensive time on the golf course and with women from adult films and modeling, multiple bankruptcies that left creditors holding the bag, not paying taxes (let’s see the tax returns), not paying his attorney, etc.
So you are just envious or jealous. What has stopped you from doing what Trump did but better? Stop focusing on what other have and start looking at your own opportunities. What President Trump does on his personal time is purely up to him or do you feel you should get to dictate everything for everybody. Stealing property from the rich and giving it to the lazy is not Robin Hood, it is just stealing. He took from the king (govt) and gave back to the people.
multiple bankruptcies that left creditors holding the bag, not
He was an equity investor in firms which went through re-organization or liquidation, Linda. Not every business venture is successful. Also, when you extend credit to someone, you assume certain risks. The risk is reflected in the premium on the service rate of the loan.
What would the rate that Russia offers be, for an American politician?
Linda, you sound obsessed with Trump. What happened? Did you run out naked in front of Trump while he was teeing off and he ignored you? Get over it.
The problem is, Linda, that those making $20,000 per year pay no income tax what so ever while likely receiving subsidies. We have a very progressive income tax system but you don’t want to pay anything and you want more subsidies. You are a taker, not willing to produce and in essence begging the rest of society to maintain your upkeep.
Bingo!
Allan, isn’t deducting the interest on one’s mortgage a subsidy?
Absolutely. And it should be removed from the tax code as well as all personal decisions like child rebates. These deduction are just social engineering through the tax code.
Absolutely. The number of subsidies we provide to healthy nonproductive people is astounding. Socialized nations don’t provide such large and plentiful subsidies. They can’t because they don’t have the money produced by people such as the Koch’s, Walton’s etc.
Workers contribute to GDP. The poster child for takers is the financial sector that drags down GDP by an estimated 2%.
the financial sector that drags down GDP by an estimated 2%.
You have no clue what you’re talking about. If you had an ounce of integrity, you’d shut up.
Aside from your dopey economics, those earning $20,000 earn pay nothing in taxes yet are on all sorts of programs that supplement their incomes. I have nothing against those people that are legal and trying to work. I wish them well. My objections are to your ignorant comments involving economics. My favorite 5-year-old actually can converse on economics at a much higher level than you.
Da oil companies receive huge subsidies. You are for welfare for billionaires and corporations
What makes you think that?
“No doubt” that “Linda” knows what JT prefers.
Nash deduces what commenters prefer. Turley’s posts reflect his preferences.
I can read the JT columns, and understand what is in them.
That’s where we differ.
The Russian troll/bot algorithm understands Turley’s posts too.
Tom
Are you saying that JT favors socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor? i.e. socialise costs, privatize profits?
Bill McWilliams,..
I think the thrust of this column is that the “rich don’t pay their fare share” meme is exaggerated.
I didn’t see any proposals
about socialism for the rich or free enterprise for the poor in his column.
Don’t think I commented on those things either, but I’ll re-read this thread to be sure.
“fair share”.
Those who produce should have, but we know that those who produce the most – that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and most menial tasks, have the least.” eugene debbs
I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence. debs
Therefore, get rid of those men that amass fortunes and we will be left as a third world nation exploited by the few that take power.
Venezuela seems to be the country that suits you best at this time in history. A rich nation that followed at least some of your advice. I just heard (not verified) that it is estimated the average weight of an adult Venezuelan has fallen 25 pounds.
Socialism a la billmcwilliams seems to be a successful weightloss program.
Da new tax rates redistibute da wealth in favor of da billionaires and corporations. Da middle class gets a few crimbs in some states. Others they pay more. Da crumbs will be eaten by rising interest rates and inflation. Rich are gettin richer. Everyone else falling behind.
Actually there has been one change to the tax code that I have been ranting to friends about for years.
Apparently people who pay membership fees to college sports booster clubs will no longer to take the 80% deduction.
This is the article I would quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/30/AR2010123003252.html
Good sites to quote from: Open Markets Institute, Economic Policy Institute, CEPR
more irrelevant stuff from linda-bot
i hear that the skies are grey today in Timbutktu
I’ll offer the following hypothesis: people who whinge about ‘equality’ and ‘fair share’ are commonly to be found in one of the following pigeonholes:
1. The red-haze intelligentsia and their dependents and hangers-on. Think Barbara Ehrenreich. It’s a performance for these people.
2. Men in late middle age who are (1) fairly articulate and (2) have suffered a series of career failures. Think former draftsman now working as a janitor (or subsisting on disability). Yes, divorced. Always divorced.
3. Middle-aged women addled by petty resentments. Years ago, a co-worker of mine who moonlighted as a waitress said she hated to say it but the worst customers were women her age (she was then 49). They want things just-so and they complain abrasively when they don’t get just what they want. What other people own that they don’t have irritates these women terribly.
4. The occasional honest policy wonk. Think Mark Kleiman or Harold Pollack.
The whining and lying is from conservatives (Paul Weyrich training manual).
Linda, I never figured you to be a conservative! This is quite a surprising revelation!
You recycle talking points from Robert Reich, Rachel MadCow, and sorosphere outfits and fancy everyone else operates the same way.
Talking points from the Kochtopus build on the seminal writings of Lewis Powell and Paul Weyrich. Paul Weyrich was the founder of ALEC, the Heritage Foundation and he was the architect of the religious right.
Try not using macros and actually thinking every once is a while.
God Almighty, she just keeps recycling the same deceitful sh*t over and over again. She’s really ruining this blog.
Except for the terminally stupid Linda’s rhetoric provides those in the middle a chance to see how crazy the left actually is. Trump didn’t win because he was a policy wonk. He won because the public was fed up with what we have. In the Democratic Party, it is the crazy Linda’s that provide policy and that is why their policies appear unhinged.
And there it is again- lesson 2 from the training manual. Trump is described as unhinged- volley the criticism back, unchanged.
Linda, your rhetoric is nonresponsive and repetitive without much substance and contains quotes that do not exist. A waste of time.
Do not be like that squeeKKKs, you seemed so fair minded never.
Stalin and Mao were the architects of Stalinism and Maoism something Linda prefers to those that believe in God. In the 20th century, those two killed more than 100 million people just to maintain power. Linda builds upon their ideas.
Thats funny I read a lot of whining and lying from you here already. Are you on the payroll of some phony socalled educational institution like Media matters which should not have a charitable designation and should be investigated by the IRS and have its charter revoked? Because i saw you boosting it earlier and it seems that you are recycling a lot of phony MM talking points
Mr. Klutz- you first, no tax breaks for all of the oligarch-funded think tanks employing intellectual prostitutes. Start with the Kochtopus then, move on to the venture “philanthropy” of Gates/Walton aimed at privatizing and corporatizing public schools