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ORIGINAL: MadRabbit

I simply don't want a President who agrees with the idea of "sharing the wealth", because it comes right around to this bullshit socialist agenda of "economic fairness". Everything has to be "fair". 

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ORIGINAL: Sanity


Interesting video. Watch as ABC's  Terry Moran argues for Obama while Joe "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher refutes her every point. 

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

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ORIGINAL: Sanity


Don't you ever wish they would tell us all about this mysterious Obama guy sometime?

But I guess I'll get what I can take, and sit back and relax and watch as they dig up all they possibly can on this Joe guy from Ohio.

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Owner CNN will momentarily,after a commercial break,tell us all about Joe the not really Plumber.

Sanity isn't it a shame your candidate didn't "dig up"all he possibly could on Joe the Plumber,before he made him his poster boy for the last debate.Same sort of mistake he made with his V.P. selection ....huh?

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ORIGINAL: candystripper

Sanity, Joe does not seem to grasp the fact that the US has a progressive tax system...not a flat tax....and has had since the passage of the constitutional amendment which permitted the income tax.  Why should a wealty person pay a higher percent of income in tax than a poor one?  Because it has always been felt that it was unfair for the poor to bear an undue share of the burden.

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife
No, we sure wouldn't want an outrageous idea like fairness spreading around.

You must not have noticed, but we do already have "a President who agrees with the idea of sharing the wealth".  Only his policies have  95% of the population sharing what little wealth they have to benefit the wealthiest 5% of the population.

Not to worry though, it's all going to come "trickling down" any day now.

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella
See I don't get this. How is a flat tax making the poor bear an undue share of the burden?

If every income were taxed at 10% (easy number to do the math with) then people making $50k would pay $5k and people making $2B would be paying, yeah you guessed it, $200M in taxes a year.

Seems to me that the person paying $200M bears a bit more of a burden than the person paying $5k. That's just the way percentages work. IMO it's discriminatory to expect higher incomes to pay a higher percentage. If you really want to be fair, they should pay a lower percentage, because 5% of 100K is the same as 10% of 50K, but FWIW I think the tax percentage should be the same for all individual taxpayers.

Businesses on the other hand are a different story.

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella

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ORIGINAL: candystripper

Sanity, Joe does not seem to grasp the fact that the US has a progressive tax system...not a flat tax....and has had since the passage of the constitutional amendment which permitted the income tax.  Why should a wealty person pay a higher percent of income in tax than a poor one?  Because it has always been felt that it was unfair for the poor to bear an undue share of the burden.

See I don't get this. How is a flat tax making the poor bear an undue share of the burden?

If every income were taxed at 10% (easy number to do the math with) then people making $50k would pay $5k and people making $2B would be paying, yeah you guessed it, $200M in taxes a year.

Seems to me that the person paying $200M bears a bit more of a burden than the person paying $5k. That's just the way percentages work. IMO it's discriminatory to expect higher incomes to pay a higher percentage. If you really want to be fair, they should pay a lower percentage, because 5% of 100K is the same as 10% of 50K, but FWIW I think the tax percentage should be the same for all individual taxpayers.

Businesses on the other hand are a different story.

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

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ORIGINAL: MadRabbit

I simply don't want a President who agrees with the idea of "sharing the wealth", because it comes right around to this bullshit socialist agenda of "economic fairness". Everything has to be "fair". 

No, we sure wouldn't want an outrageous idea like fairness spreading around.

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella

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ORIGINAL: candystripper

Sanity, Joe does not seem to grasp the fact that the US has a progressive tax system...not a flat tax....and has had since the passage of the constitutional amendment which permitted the income tax.  Why should a wealty person pay a higher percent of income in tax than a poor one?  Because it has always been felt that it was unfair for the poor to bear an undue share of the burden.

See I don't get this. How is a flat tax making the poor bear an undue share of the burden?

If every income were taxed at 10% (easy number to do the math with) then people making $50k would pay $5k and people making $2B would be paying, yeah you guessed it, $200M in taxes a year.

Seems to me that the person paying $200M bears a bit more of a burden than the person paying $5k. That's just the way percentages work. IMO it's discriminatory to expect higher incomes to pay a higher percentage. If you really want to be fair, they should pay a lower percentage, because 5% of 100K is the same as 10% of 50K, but FWIW I think the tax percentage should be the same for all individual taxpayers.

Businesses on the other hand are a different story.

While your math seems to be spot on,you go off the rails with your views on proportion...the 50,000 dollar schmoe who has payed 5,000 dollars is left with 45,000 dollars for all the rest of life's expence's(including BTW state and local taxes) while the 2Billion dollar man has 1.8 billion dollars to muddle thru with....if you think that is fair...you need to take another look.BTW the 2 Billion dollars man has prospered pretty well as an American citizen ,has he not?

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella

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ORIGINAL: candystripper

Sanity, Joe does not seem to grasp the fact that the US has a progressive tax system...not a flat tax....and has had since the passage of the constitutional amendment which permitted the income tax.  Why should a wealty person pay a higher percent of income in tax than a poor one?  Because it has always been felt that it was unfair for the poor to bear an undue share of the burden.

See I don't get this. How is a flat tax making the poor bear an undue share of the burden?

If every income were taxed at 10% (easy number to do the math with) then people making $50k would pay $5k and people making $2B would be paying, yeah you guessed it, $200M in taxes a year.

Seems to me that the person paying $200M bears a bit more of a burden than the person paying $5k. That's just the way percentages work. IMO it's discriminatory to expect higher incomes to pay a higher percentage. If you really want to be fair, they should pay a lower percentage, because 5% of 100K is the same as 10% of 50K, but FWIW I think the tax percentage should be the same for all individual taxpayers.

Businesses on the other hand are a different story.

While your math seems to be spot on,you go off the rails with your views on proportion...the 50,000 dollar schmoe who has payed 5,000 dollars is left with 45,000 dollars for all the rest of life's expence's(including BTW state and local taxes) while the 2Billion dollar man has 1.8 billion dollars to muddle thru with....if you think that is fair...you need to take another look.BTW the 2 Billion dollars man has prospered pretty well as an American citizen ,has he not?

No, sorry, the first guy isn't "left with" $45k

The first guy EARNED 45k.

The second guy doesn't just randomly "have" $1.8B

He EARNED $1.8B.

Do I think it's fair that if a person earns x amount of dollars, then their standard of living should reflect that amount?
Oh hell yes.

In fact I would like you to explain to me how it would be more fair for a person to be arbitrarily given money that he didn't earn. Or on the flip side, how it would be fair for a person to arbitrarily lose money that he did earn?

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella




I'm all for fairness.

Fairness would be taxing every American the same percentage of his income. The rich would pay more, the poor would pay less - they would all pay the same proportion though. That's fair.

What's unfair is raising the percentage of tax paid based on income. Especially considering that those high income people would pay more in taxes anyway. How is it fair, by any definition of the word, to tell those people "yeah you know, there are a lot of people who want what you have, so I think we're going to take it from you and give it to them.

We're talking about income here, not inherited wealth. Income is money earned. Considering that most people who earn a lot of money got there through hard work (high grades in HS, taking SAT prep instead of partying, maintaining scholarship-level grades in university (whether or not they were on scholarship), internships, entry level positions, and proving their worth enough to be promoted over maybe 20, 30 years) I think it's the epitome of UNfair to expect those people to subsidize people who didn't take that track.

It's all well and good to get a liberal arts degree in philosophy instead of an MBA, but when you're making $40k and That Designer Blonde Bitch your artsy friends made fun of, who is now a CFO of a major corporation, is pulling in nearly $300k, you have NO right to whine and expect socialist policies to make things "fair" by some twisted definition of the word.

FAIR is accepting consequences for your life decisions. That is the epitome of JUSTICE.

MERCY on the other hand, is quite unfair. Lenience and sympathy? Also unfair. Compassionate clemency? Ditto.

You can call socialism merciful, lenient, sympathetic, compassionate, etc. but in no way is it either just or fair.

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All that needs to be said about your views when discussing taxes,is the line where you refer to the low end guy paying less taxes as being given money.whle the rich man paying his taxes is losing money.funny how one's words reveal one's true agenda...is it not.

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

And yet of the 41 states that have an income tax 35 use a graduated (re:progressive)tax plan.The federal income tax has been a graduated(re:progressive)since 1913....and still the rich manage to get rich and do well..is there a possibility this happens to work....or has it been unfair to all those entrepanuers and millionaires all these years.BTW you do realise the rich hire very competant tax lawyers to reduce their burden has much as possible...and they are quite good at it.....Somehow Elisabella we have muddled along with a Graduated tax plan for almost one hundred years....it seems to be working.

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: MadRabbit

I simply don't want a President who agrees with the idea of "sharing the wealth", because it comes right around to this bullshit socialist agenda of "economic fairness". Everything has to be "fair". 

No, we sure wouldn't want an outrageous idea like fairness spreading around.

You must not have noticed, but we do already have "a President who agrees with the idea of sharing the wealth".  Only his policies have  95% of the population sharing what little wealth they have to benefit the wealthiest 5% of the population.

Not to worry though, it's all going to come "trickling down" any day now.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Elisabella

quote:

ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

And yet of the 41 states that have an income tax 35 use a graduated (re:progressive)tax plan.The federal income tax has been a graduated(re:progressive)since 1913....and still the rich manage to get rich and do well..is there a possibility this happens to work....or has it been unfair to all those entrepanuers and millionaires all these years.BTW you do realise the rich hire very competant tax lawyers to reduce their burden has much as possible...and they are quite good at it.....Somehow Elisabella we have muddled along with a Graduated tax plan for almost one hundred years....it seems to be working.

Personally I don't see our (or rather, the US's, as I guess in a few months I'll be officially considered an expat) current economy as 'working.'

I think our economy needs a lot of changes, and a flat tax would only be one of them. I think it would be better for our economy to tax high levels of savings rather than high levels of income - that would ensure that the money continues to fluctuate in the economy. A person making $2B a year isn't a problem in itself - it's when he saves $1.5B and removes it from the economy that things get muddy.

I do have a question for you - if you think our current system is working so well, why are you voting for someone who bases his platform on 'change'?

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
Well good luck with all that....one last point you do realise both Candidates tax plan's are progressive in nature,the only difference being one guy wants to give more tax breaks to the richest amongst us,including the biggest Corp.,and the other thinks the little guy could use a break.....just saying.