Tax The Rich

[GesterHawk]

I haven't run across anyone that wants to be poor...

Have you not accepted our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and have you not felt His presence?

 

[baltimorened]

In very broad strokes it seems fair that those who benefit more should contribute more to the needed revenues.

You seem to be saying raising taxes is unfair. But the bills need to be paid, so if raising the necessary revenues means taxes have to go up, that's not unfair. You may not like it, and I would share that sentiment, but that doesn't make it unfair.

You also seem to be suggesting that if your taxes exceed the average rate, that's unfair. But why would that necessarily be so?

Other people say what they pay (or may be asked to pay) is unfair because they don't agree with what the money is being used for. I definitely understand that complaint, too, but that's not a fairness issue. Once we have agreed on the programs and allocations, it's just a matter of where and how we collect the money. Getting the right programs and allocations is a separate process.

Unfairness is a little easier to characterize. If someone is being charged more (or is getting a better break) than other similarly situated people, without good reason, that's probably unfair.

That last point is why I'm not 100% on board with the billionaire tax, although I do favor it in general terms.

I'd like to bring you back to one of the first posts of your I read where you asked, and I might not have the words exactly right, but to paraphrase, ...what should the government be doing or how big should the government be. Allowed to their own devices governments tend to grow and just pass the bills down. That's how we got to 1 $39trillion debt...government just added spending and rather than make the hard decision on increasing revenue, just borrowed and borrowed.

Fair is always in the mind of the individual...to the person not paying taxes, taxing someone else is fair....but not to the person paying. So, that gets to the question who is the determiner of fair. Since we're in our 250th year, how about this analogy, I'd bet that King George thought taxing the colonies was fair...it's safe to say the colonies didn't agree.

 

[GesterHawk]

I'd like to bring you back to one of the first posts of your I read where you asked, and I might not have the words exactly right, but to paraphrase, ...what should the government be doing or how big should the government be. Allowed to their own devices governments tend to grow and just pass the bills down. That's how we got to 1 $39trillion debt...government just added spending and rather than make the hard decision on increasing revenue, just borrowed and borrowed.

Fair is always in the mind of the individual...to the person not paying taxes, taxing someone else is fair....but not to the person paying. So, that gets to the question who is the determiner of fair. Since we're in our 250th year, how about this analogy, I'd bet that King George thought taxing the colonies was fair...it's safe to say the colonies didn't agree.

I pay taxes. I am happy that some of my tax money is going to pay for food for someone who needs the help.

I would rather my tax money pay for that as opposed to paying to blow up a school in Iran to be honest.

 

[baltimorened]

I pay taxes. I am happy that some of my tax money is going to pay for food for someone who needs the help.

I would rather my tax money pay for that as opposed to paying to blow up a school in Iran to be honest.

i pay a lot of taxes, and I also am happy that some of my money pays for food for someone who needs help, and I also give food directly.

I would rather my tax money went there as well as opposed to blowing up a school in Iran...

But neither of those has anything to do with how a government builds budgets, which was the original basis of our discussion. But at least we're on the same page on feeding people.

 

[GesterHawk]

i pay a lot of taxes, and I also am happy that some of my money pays for food for someone who needs help, and I also give food directly.

I would rather my tax money went there as well as opposed to blowing up a school in Iran...

But neither of those has anything to do with how a government builds budgets, which was the original basis of our discussion. But at least we're on the same page on feeding people.

Some times I think we are so far removed as a populace from the fact that the government is supposed to be our government and not that the government controls us.

If feeding the less fortunate is more important to you than blowing up kids you damn well better be voting that way. And if the people you are voting for are not building that budget - or at least fighting for it - vote in someone who will.

Corporate donations and donations from parties that are not located in the district they donated to have eroded the voices of the average American.

So yes, me not wanting my money to go to blowing up children is part of the discussion of how the federal budget should be built because I am an American voter.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

 

[bdgan]

It's a revenue problem if we are still borrowing to pay the bills.

So if your wife spends like crazy and runs up credit card debt, you take loans to buy a boat, fancy cars, and take extravagant vacations, etc you have a revenue problem?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

So if your wife spends like crazy and runs up credit card debt, you take loans to buy a boat, fancy cars, and take extravagant vacations, etc you have a revenue problem?

You can't pay CURRENT bills with future spending cuts.

How is that difficult to understand?

Try this. Don't pay your mortgage. Then when the bank wants to foreclose, just tell it "I won't take a vacation next year."

Let us know how that works out.

 

[bdgan]

You can't pay CURRENT bills with future spending cuts.

How is that difficult to understand?

Try this. Don't pay your mortgage. Then when the bank wants to foreclose, just tell it "I won't take a vacation next year."

Let us know how that works out.

We could reduce CURRENT bills by reducing CURRENT spending if congress had the will to make that happen.

• 2025 federal revenues were $5.2 trillion compared to expenditures of $7.0 trillion ($1.8 trillion deficit)
• 2026 federal revenues are projected to be $5.6 trillion which is roughly an 8% increase.
• $2.7 trillion of the $5.6 revenue is expected to come from individual income taxes.

Are you suggesting that we increase income taxes across the board by 67% to eliminate the deficit?

Revenues have been growing by more than 8% per year but spending keeps growing faster. I don't understand your logic that deficit spending must be fixed by more and more tax revenue.

I've proposed a lot of tax increases that would all go to reduce the deficit, not social welfare.

• 50% SS tax on earnings over $200k (3.1% employee, 3.1% employer)
• Increase top rate from 37% to 39.6%
• Increase top corporate rate from 21% to 22%
• Impose a 1% wealth tax (although I'm not sure how that would work)
• Eliminate ISOs, treat all options as non qualified
• Continue tariffs, but maybe at a lower rate unless national security is involved

I think that's incredibly generous coming from a fiscal conservative but all of those things together would probably only reduce the deficit by $350 billion or so. At some point we've got to reduce spending. I'd even freeze defense spending at about $1 trillion. We can't default on our bonds but everything else would be fair game. Unfortunately that never happens because politicians get elected by promising more free stuff. More for education, more for healthcare, more for the environment, more for housing, more for drug treatment, more for social welfare. It never ends.

 

[bdgan]

Some times I think we are so far removed as a populace from the fact that the government is supposed to be our government and not that the government controls us.

If feeding the less fortunate is more important to you than blowing up kids you damn well better be voting that way. And if the people you are voting for are not building that budget - or at least fighting for it - vote in someone who will.

Corporate donations and donations from parties that are not located in the district they donated to have eroded the voices of the average American.

So yes, me not wanting my money to go to blowing up children is part of the discussion of how the federal budget should be built because I am an American voter.

We haven't stopped feeding the poor because of this war. We've simply added ($30 billion?) to the federal debt.

Innocent civilians killed as collateral damage from the war is tragic but so are the 40,000 innocent civilians that the Iranian government killed due to protests. What about the thousands Iran or their proxies kill every year through their terrorist activities?

I opposed this war from the beginning but I also understand it. The world can be an ugly place and it's easy to second guess whatever actions the government takes.