toldailytopic: Is increasing taxes on the wealthy a wise economic plan for this natio

[Nathon Detroit]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for November 15th, 2012 08:32 AM

toldailytopic: Is increasing taxes on the wealthy a wise economic plan for this nation?

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[Nathon Detroit]

Liberals are so monumentally shortsighted. The wealthy already pay the vast share of taxes in this nation. Therefore when Obama raises tax rates on the wealthy the government WILL NOT raise more tax revenue they will raise less.

The wealthy will spend less in an effort to hang on to what they have. They will move wealth out of the country. And they will stop taking as much risk with their capital as they would have originally.

For proof of this concept just look around at the states that have attempted this: New Jersey, California, the wealthy flee! And the state is left with an even larger tax burden because now much of their wealth generating businessmen have left.

 

[serpentdove]

:Nineveh: It's the Jews! :sozo2: Ge 12:3, Ex 20:15, 17

See:

How did American Jews get so rich? :greedy:

The Antidote to Anti-Semitism by J. Vernon McGee

 

[HisServant]

No.. and closing loop holes is not something either party is really serious about because the loop holes yield the most campaign dollars from doners... people paid serious money to lobby for them.

 

[PureX]

All the evidence supports the wisdom of raising taxes on the wealthiest 2%, but the intense bias of most of those participating in this thread will preclude them from ever being able to recognize it. So I'm not sure what the point is in asking the question, except to start yet another 'lets hate on the evil liberals some more' thread, in the form of a question.

 

[Alate_One]

Tax policy (especially at the top) historically has had little effect on economic growth.

This makes sense because the rich spend a comparatively small amount of their income. Their investment apparently has much less to do with tax rates than the state of the rest of the economy, which again seems to have almost nothing to do with tax rates.

Tax Cuts don't lead to economic growth

The tax policy mantra of the Republican party has no basis in actual data.

 

[bybee]

All the evidence supports the wisdom of raising taxes on the wealthiest 2%, but the intense bias of most of those participating in this thread will preclude them from ever being able to recognizing it. So I'm not sure what the point is in asking the question, except to reassert the bias disguised as a question, and to wallow in all those "atta boy!" and "here!, here!" responses.

Now that you've got your snotty comments out of the way I shall respond.
I am a fiscal conservative and I believe we ought to raise taxes on the wealthiest 2% by a reasonable amount.
But, where does it stop? The government has a way of expanding its grasp to such an extent as to make the greed of the wealthiest 2% pale by comparison!
AND!!! If tax the rich becomes our motto then, curb the entitlements must be a corollary!

 

[Stripe]

Flat tax! Flat tax!

 

[PureX]

I am a fiscal conservative and I believe we ought to raise taxes on the wealthiest 2% by a reasonable amount.
But, where does it stop? The government has a way of expanding its grasp to such an extent as to make the greed of the wealthiest 2% pale by comparison!

And yet, the government has been lowering taxes on the wealthy for 20 years, even as the debt has risen by leaps and bounds. Somehow, this doesn't seem to indicate the wild greed that you're asserting.

The fact is that the wealthiest 2% of the population now control over half of the nation's wealth, while they have been paying little and sometimes nothing in taxes. Which means that everything that the nation needs to spend money on has had to either come out of the pockets of everyone else, or be borrowed (from the rich). The political toadies for the wealthy 2% (the republican party) are claiming that the problem with all that debt is that the government is trying to help too many poor (read 'undeserving') people. But the truth is that it's because of the malfeasance of those 2% that the public is in need of so much help in the first place. We NEED to get the wealth of the nation more evenly distributed before our economy completely implodes from the imbalance. That means taxing the wealthy and spending the money on programs that will put money back in the pockets of everyone else. The truth is that Obama's infrastructure stimulus plan was a good one because we need to attend to our infrastructure and the people who do the work are the people who need the money. But so far the politicians can't seem to come up with the courage to make it happen.

If tax the rich becomes our motto then, curb the entitlements must be a corollary!

Actually, no. If we tax the rich and simply use all the money to pay down the debt, all we're really doing is giving it right back to them. We need to SPEND the money in ways that gets it into the pockets of the middle class, who will then use it to buy things. Which will stimulate industry and jobs, and increase the tax base across the board. The more the money piles up in the hands of the few, the more stagnant the economy becomes.

The national debt is not our big problem. The stagnant economy is. And the reason it's so stagnant is because the wealth is so unevenly distributed.

 

[bybee]

And yet, the government has been lowering taxes on the wealthy for 20 years, even as the debt has risen by leaps and bounds. Somehow, this doesn't seem to indicate the wild greed that you're asserting.

The fact is that the wealthiest 2% of the population now control over half of the nation's wealth, while they have been paying little and sometimes nothing in taxes. Which means that everything that the nation needs to spend money on has had to either come out of the pockets of everyone else, or be borrowed (from the rich). The political toadies for the wealthy 2% (the republican party) are claiming that the problem with all that debt is that the government is trying to help too many poor (read 'undeserving') people. But the truth is that it's because of the malfeasance of those 2% that the public is in need of so much help in the first place. We NEED to get the wealth of the nation more evenly distributed before our economy completely implodes from the imbalance. That means taxing the wealthy and spending the money on programs that will put money back in the pockets of everyone else. The truth is that Obama's infrastructure stimulus plan was a good one because we need to attend to our infrastructure and the people who do the work are the people who need the money. But so far the politicians can't seem to come up with the courage to make it happen.
Actually, no. If we tax the rich and simply use all the money to pay down the debt, all we're really doing is giving it right back to them. We need to SPEND the money in ways that gets it into the pockets of the middle class, who will then use it to buy things. Which will stimulate industry and jobs, and increase the tax base across the board. The more the money piles up in the hands of the few, the more stagnant the economy becomes.

The national debt is not our big problem. The stagnant economy is. And the reason it's so stagnant is because the wealth is so unevenly distributed.

Thanks be to God! Our new president is a virtual messiah to the poor and downtrodden! He will fix this mess and we, that is the poor, shall be vindicated! All of their needs shall be met. And the filthy rich shall be stripped and thrown into debtors prison! Oh wait, they have probably removed most of their ill gotten gains to foreign banks by now.
Now what do we do?
Let the United Nations run our affairs!

 

[rocketman]

If tax the rich becomes our motto then, curb the entitlements must be a corollary!

Or curb the over regulation which is a tax all unto itself....

 

[eameece]

Liberals are so monumentally shortsighted. The wealthy already pay the vast share of taxes in this nation. Therefore when Obama raises tax rates on the wealthy the government WILL NOT raise more tax revenue they will raise less.

Supply-side trickle-down economics is a fraud. Giving the rich tax breaks does not create jobs; it costs jobs. The wealthy paying what they paid in the Clinton years will cause boom times as it did during the Clinton years. Government spending puts money in peoples' pockets, not tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. People who make $250,000 or more don't need a break in order to hire more people. They can hire as many as they wish, and paying a little more in taxes is not going to make any difference at all. The congressional study said it would only slow growth by 0.25%. Actually it would probably increase growth.

The wealthy will spend less in an effort to hang on to what they have. They will move wealth out of the country. And they will stop taking as much risk with their capital as they would have originally.

In other words, they will continue to do what they always do.

For proof of this concept just look around at the states that have attempted this: New Jersey, California, the wealthy flee! And the state is left with an even larger tax burden because now much of their wealth generating businessmen have left.

Taxes have been kept low in CA by the Republicans for 34 years. Now at least we can pay for schools, and we can cut back on all the wasted money on prisons. People leave CA because housing costs are so high, because CA is a desirable place to live, and remains so. Wealthy businessmen who don't want to contribute to CA's high quality of life can leave, and don't bother to close the door on your way out, scumbags! Red states have a much lower quality of life by any measure you care to use. You red state people are welcome to it!

 

[bybee]

Or curb the over regulation which is a tax all unto itself....

You got that right!
It may well be that all opportunities for the entrepreneurial spirit will be stifled altogether in this country.

 

[PureX]

Thanks be to God! Our new president is a virtual messiah to the poor and downtrodden! He will fix this mess and we, that is the poor, shall be vindicated! All of their needs shall be met. And the filthy rich shall be stripped and thrown into debtors prison! Oh wait, they have probably removed most of their ill gotten gains to foreign banks by now.
Now what do we do?
Let the United Nations run our affairs!

You do realize that's an absurdly hyperbolic response, I hope. Perhaps once you regain your composure and return to reality, you can craft a more reasonable reply?

 

[eameece]

Or curb the over regulation which is a tax all unto itself....

We wouldn't need regulations if business did what it ought to do anyway.

 

[PureX]

Or curb the over regulation which is a tax all unto itself....

Anyone I've known who has started a small business had no problems with "overregulation". Their greatest problem was by far affording health insurance for themselves and their employees, and high local taxes. I know you love this particular boogeyman, but in reality it's not really a major problem. There surely are examples of overregulation, but in general, it's not the biggest issue for small business start-ups.

 

[Newman]

A few random thoughts:

Taxes are theft. Even if the social planner believes he is doing good by spending other people's money, it is still other people's money.

But even if you don't believe in private property, taxes inhibit economic growth. They take money out of the private, productive, entrepreneurial sector and flood the public, bureaucratic, destructive sector.

But even if you don't care about long term growth, taxes distort markets. They impose costs on either buyers or sellers (depending on how you look at it and how the tax is set up) that disfigure market signals like prices and quantities of output into meaninglessness.

But even if you don't care about markets and trust the government instead, to believe increasing taxes will increase government revenue, you must be making an assumption that our economy is operating on the left side of the Laffer curve.

But, even if we grant you that we are on the left side of the Laffer curve, and increasing taxes will increase government revenue, then you still must prove that that money is better spent by a bureaucrat (who was probably appointed by somebody *cough*friendsandfamily*cough* elected by lying to the citizenry) than an entrepreneur motivated by profit opportunity.

If you are still on board, then you are telling people "You do not have the right to earn/have/save/spend your own money because I can vote for people that know how to spend your money better than you."

...which means that it takes a person of great delusions of grandeur and intelligence to think that taxes are a moral and beneficial thing in a supposedly free and prosperous society.

 

[Sherman]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for November 15th, 2012 08:32 AM

toldailytopic: Is increasing taxes on the wealthy a wise economic plan for this nation?

No. Firstly the plan is driven by selfishness and as you have so succinctly put it, it's short sighted.

How did the wealthy get that way?

1. By spending money to go to school to become qualified in their trade.

2. Through hard work--not sitting on their can.

Taxing them is going to discourage other people from pursuing high paying job creating positions. Wealthy people are the ones who create jobs! By driving the wealthy from our shores, we are driving the jobs from our shores too.

Doctors are also another high paying position that high taxes are driving away. The medical profession will suffer as a result.

This shortsighted approach is the Robbing Hood syndrome--Rob from the honest workers to fund freeloaders. "I want what you got, but I don't want to work for it--anyways there's more of us than you--so we are going to take it from you"--is how the system works. The whole approach is driven by laziness and self-centerness. America is cutting itself off at the knees through this approach. If America got God back into the educational system and government, we wouldn't be visiting this issue.

 

[bybee]

Anyone I've known who has started a small business had no problems with "overregulation". Their greatest problem was by far affording health insurance for themselves and their employees, and high local taxes. I know you love this particular boogeyman, but in reality it's not really a major problem. There surely are examples of overregulation, but in general, it's not the biggest issue for small business start-ups.

Oh yes it is!
Doctor's for instance, must have a registered nurse on staff just to fill out Medicare papers. If one iota is out of place it is sent back denied.
When our small sign company was still functioning OSHA almost destroyed us twice through no wrongdoing on our part. Each time an employee failed to follow safety regulations. No one was injured nothing was broken or destroyed. I showed records of our safety meetings with signatures of each employee having passed the tests . Still OSHA imposed huge fines and said "Too bad"!

 

[Eeset]

How did the wealthy get that way?

2. Through hard work--not sitting on their can.

That is the myth that needs to be exposed. One does not amass millions or billions on a wage or salary. The smart learn how to game the system. The key is ownership whether that be of the stock in a company or resources such as an oil field or a coal mine. Our economic system rewards those who are smart enough to gain control and then multiply wealth through the Wall Street markets. You might say that Bill Gates worked hard but it was his business smarts to retain controlling stock interest in Microsoft that made him a billionaire. If he had gone to work as an IBM employee he would still be just a well paid employee not a multi-billionaire.

Here's the rub. Smart is a relative term and by definition a small percentage of any population will be smarter than others. So we have a system that domes the majority of its population to being either a working stiff or unemployed.