Mother Jones - Comments for "How to Think About Taxes"

To me your numbers are way

To me your numbers are way off, at least if you define the terms as I do. When you say "Share of Total Taxes" I think percentage of Federal Tax Revenue paid. In that sense the top Quintile pays about 70% of the taxes not the 28% you list. But you must mean "Effective Tax Rate" which would make more sense. Using "Tax Share" is how Republicans like to talk about taxes. Theytiffany jewelry

tiffany and co
conveniently don't mention "Income Share". Ezra Klein has a good post on this here: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?

Taxes

Raise taxes to the level of the sainted Ronald Reagan? The guy who introduced us to multi-Billion dollar yearly Deficits and taught this constant reader the word Trillion? (as in debt) A wonderful start. If done correctly, it reduces the super super wealthy to the merely super wealthy. While we are on the subject let's illustrate what voodoo economics have brought us (to our knees, literally, before the Communist Chinese, who used to be our enemies before we found out how cheap they will work) From January to the middle of March, ALL of it goes to pay INTEREST on the debt (dead money from last year's mistakes) then from March till December, WARS, past, present and future. So every year, we keep digging the hole deeper. How many times being able to kill everyone alive is enough? We soon will have no country to defend, when the Commies cut us off. What then? We blow them up rather than give up the west coast? Or just cut a deal where the rich and powerful get to keep their standard of living and we all become slaves? Large-scale tribal warfare is suicide eventually, and there is so much to live for

Teaparty participants

I would venture that a significant percentage of the recent teaparty participants were in fact in the second quintile. Why? Because for reasons that are a mystery to me, people in that tax bracket seem to be attracted to the Republican party, despite the fact that the Republican party offers little or nothing to benefit them. I have even known people in the lowest quintile who are die-hard Republicans more or less because that party advocates less strict gun laws.

more on taxes???

Is anyone else still monitoring this discussion? This was one of the most interestig and informative discussions I've been involved in for some time (Thank-you Kevin!) and I would like to carry it on for a while....is anyone game? I think this is a subject that NEEDS discussing at all levels and am frustrated with the lack of opportunities to discuss it. Is anyone else?

flat tax, blame the poor, weak sick and old types are dishonest

The person/family who works a menial job and has no car or an old beater, rents his/her home and survives just above the poverty line but uses no cash public assistance (there are millions of people who fall into this category) costs the government absolutely nothing on an ongoing basis. It's only when these folks get down on their luck or are serially unproductive that the government's entitlement safety net becomes burdened. What's totally unfair is to saddle the moral and financial responsibility for these particular government expenditures on the group of people who most closely match the socio economic status of those that can't support themselves. The government chooses to spend trillions on expenses that have nothing to do with the actual survival issues that comprise the working poor's complete set of issues: A. Can I find work? B. Can I survive on the wages of that work? If people are working full time for profit making companies while simultaneously depending on the government to cover their subsistence expenses, it's not the workers who are getting the assistance, it's the employers. The working poor may like the idea of protecting America from a surprise nuclear attack, researching a cure for cancer, sending every child to school and college, and retooling our energy and transportation infrastructure. So put a jar next to the register where they buy their food and essentials (for which they pay more than anyone btw). The jar would be empty, just as a representative voting their interests in congress would simply never vote for such items. Stopping wage slavery and waiting to spend government defense and discretionary money until we actually collected the taxes and unemployment and underemployment was under 5% (instead of near 20%) would solve a ton of problems. The EFCA enactment would be a good start.

Bobreply, if you are in the

Bobreply, if you are in the Norfolk area I'd love nothing more than to buy you a beverage of your choice.

The author needs a class in

The author needs a class in basic math: If you make more, you pay more. That's a flat tax. He also needs a dictionary: Making one group pay less or more might be moral, but it's certainly not "fair."

Larry's idea of a fair,

Larry's idea of a fair, consumption based tax is ridiculous. If you are making $30,000 a year and spending it all on food, clothing, housing, etc... you are consuming a far higher proportion of your income than those who make more. That is why consumptive taxes are regressive!

Most of these countries in

Most of these countries in Europe did try this (squeezing the rich) and it failed. We even did it in the US (back in the 60s and 70s when we taxed both the rich and the poor at higher rates than we do now) and we couldn't pay for European-style benefits. American exceptionalism or no, there are dozens of examples of failure (to pay for Social Democracy off the backs of the rich alone) and no successes. Then again, it depends on how you classify rich. I call rich anyone who is "above average" in income. If you tax that half of the population heavily than we can pay for benefits. I think a system that allows the first $40k of income tax free and then takes 75% of everything above that would work great. The very, very rich would pay average tax rates of close to 75%. Someone making $80k would pay about 37.5% (probably close to 50% including state, local and soc sec), which sounds about right. Social Democracy isn't free- it is time for everyone to step up and pay. No vacations, smaller houses, no eating out- hey, but health care will be free until about age 80 (when treatment stops). All in all a very nice tradeoff.

comments on Drum's tax article

The most imortant factors I learned from Drum's article were gleaned from the various comments, all of which are intelligent and no doubt sincere. My conclusion is that there is no easy solution. I was almost swayed by the higher income respondents who stated that a progressive tax is unfair, until I pondered on the comment that stated that a dollar to a poor man is not equal to the dollar of the rich man. This means to me that while the rich are paying a higher ratio of the overall tax burden, they are paying it with "cheaper" dollars. Thank you for this article as well as poresenting all the pros and cons.

There is no country that has

There is no country that has built a social democratic "paradise" off the backs of the rich. I am a patriot who firmly believes in American exceptionalism. We are after all, the city on the hill and the last best hope of earth.

I don't get it.

When you buy a loaf of bread, the store doesn't demand to know your income and charge you a percentage of that. Everyone pays exactly the same price. So why is it somehow considered acceptable for governments to charge some people more than others for exactly the same government? Aren't we all "equal under the law?" It's not like people who pay more taxes get better government. No tax is fair that discriminates against people on the basis of income.

Taxes

All of this blather is akin to debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The level of govt. spending and benefits that you support is not consistent with a tax base where the bottom 50pct of the population pays almost nothing (net of benefits). Rather than debating fanciful concepts, why not look at real life examples? 1) there are dozens of social democratic states that offer the benefits Americans (on this website) dream of 2) it is politically popular to impose high taxes on a very few in order to buy the votes of the many with "free" benefits Hence, if it were possible for the states in category (1) to pay for their benefits using policy (2), we should find dozens of real life examples of this. Where are they? I've lived in both the UK and Canada and they tax the hell out of the middle quintiles. For instance, the 40pct income tax bracket starts at about $50k in income in the UK and everyone pays 17.5% VAT in addition to high energy and sin taxes. There is no country that has built a social democratic "paradise" off the backs of the rich. I can't find any major developed country where the bottom 50pct of the population (in income terms) pays less taxes.

tax rates

I'm not sure how you managed to spin the data to make your point, but here's mine: the CBO figures show that the top two quintiles pay 16.5% and 69.3% of all federal taxes. The top 1% of earners pay 28% of all federal taxes. A lot of your readers probably think that's OK. I'm not so sure. Yeah, you guessed it, I'm in the top quintile, but not the top 1%. There is a lot of room for debate. Should taxes be progressive? Up to a point, it's the only realistic way to pay for things. It gets dicey when the progressiveness turns into emptying the pockets of the wealthy to pay everyone else for...what? One thing seems certain to me: the people getting the skim are not motivated to pressure the government to spend its money wisely. After all, they are on the receiving end of the food chain. Ironically, those folks do get hit harder with sin taxes like the tobacco and gasoline taxes, but pay them without registering any protest. I spent tax day working, as usual, and did not attend any tea parties. My days of marching in mass protests ended in the 70s when I realized that the leaders of the movements were as self-serving and venal as the people on top we were trying to oust.

Very Flawed Marxist Logic

Well written but very deceptive-- 38% of income earners pay no federal income tax whatsoever---is there any doubt they receive a disproportionate share of federal largesse ? With Obama's scheduled tax rebate to those who pay very little in federal income tax this percentage is expected to rise to 50% which will become the tipping point to the slow dissolution of the union as the majority will support spending at any level as they will not have to pay for it. Only in the fantasy world of the Socialist does someone receive an income tax cut when they pay no income tax. The only fair solution is a flat tax where everyone pays the same percentage or a "fair tax" where everybody pays the same rate at the till. Face it anything else is discrimination and says one person should be punished to reward another. The idea that one who earns more owes more because they received disproportionate advantage from the government is really reflective of the Socialist / Communist mindset. The creation of wealth happens despite the federal government conducting activities not outlined in the Constitution not because of it. "The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other People's money." Margaret Thatcher