<p>BTW the “opportunities for death” line would be a LOL except I cant laugh about that.</p>
<p>The thing is, this isn’t really an issue for us, but I think it is a major issue for our children. I’ve been beating this drum for a long time. (The basic fact of the growth of the income differential between the hyper-rich and the rich, middle class and poor is graphically illustrated on IRS charts that were linked to, from all places, rushlimbaugh.com!) As with EmeraldKity I wouldn’t trade places with a financially wealthier person (and I live in an affluent area where I know some of the hyper-rich) because I consider myself to be wealthy in all the things that count. And let’s face, it - I’ve got enough money to pay the bills and put something aside for my kids college and my retirement - I’m doing OK. So the amount of money somebody else does or doesn’t have is not an issue for me.</p>
<p>But the future of our society, with growing stratification between the economic classes, does concern me. Our nation has been healthiest when the disparity between the rich and less rich was least extreme. I’ve read somewhere that the average Japanese CEO makes 11 timed the average income of his company’s workers, while in the US the ratio is something like 450 - 1. I think that breeds cynicism and contempt. Workers know the CEO isn’t worth 450 of them - and all the BS in the world won’t change that. We don’t need a caste society - but we’re headed that way.</p>
<p>I loved Warren Buffett’s comment when asked about class warfare - “The rich are winning.” No kidding.</p>
<p>But still, the thing that seems most unfair is that ordinary, everyday rich people are being humiliated by these hyper-rich interlopers. I see droves of them being won over by Howard Dean’s common sense sweet-talking. Another seismic NYT piece. What a paper. ;)</p>
<p>Embrace the luv! ;)</p>
<p>Can somebody explain to me why those making over $400,000 a year should pay 13.9 % less of their income in taxes than those making $80,000 to $400,000.</p>
<p><a href=“http://nytimes.com/2005/06/07/opinion/07tues1.html[/url]”>http://nytimes.com/2005/06/07/opinion/07tues1.html</a></p>
<p>The federal government is spending around 19% of the GDP in this country yet the federal government only collects revenues of 16% of the GDP leaving us with a huge budget deficit.</p>
<p>Can somebody explain to me why we aren’t collecting more in taxes now that…
- Baby boomers are at their most productive state.
- The economy is growing at or above trends.</p>
<p>Shouldn’t we be running surpluses now so we can run deficits when the baby boomers become old? </p>
<p>Why is it OK to run surpluses in the social security system for 20 years and spend that money for income tax cuts , but it is not OK to run deficits in the social security system and increase income taxes to pay for this as baby boomers age?</p>
<p>Why are we giving subsidies of $2.5 million per rice farm in Northern California (These farms are profitable without subsidies) , but we are having trouble providing Medicaid to the neediest Americans?</p>
<p>Simple–they include the SS taxes in the numbers. That’s a bogus comparison as that tax is repaid interest in the future as your SS benefits. You don’t get your income tax back later.</p>
<p>Social security is not taxed at a 13.9% rate. People with incomes above $90,000 aren’t paying social security taxes above that level, just like the people earning $400,000. Your answer only explains a couple of percentage points, nothing close to 13.9 percent.</p>
<p>Probably from interest on investments or other ways to avoid taxes… look at Teresa Heinz Kerry, who paid 15% of her income in total taxes. Last time I checked, I’m a poor student and getting nailed for a higher percentage than that. AMT - probably fueled initially by class warfare and anger at the upper classes, now a bane of the middle/upper middle class… and in need of fixing…</p>
<p>My guess is the difference in tax rates are due to capital gains taxes, dividend tax rates, and social security taxes. (I don’t believe tax-free interest from muni bonds is included in these numbers which would skew these numbers more.)</p>
<p>ariesathena, Do you think you should pay a higher percentage of your income in taxes than Teresa Heinz Kerry?</p>
<p>Theresa’s “break” is there because she has a large portfolio of municipal bonds, on which the interest is exempt from federal tax. The interest paid by the borrowers (municipallities and states) is lower because of that. Its basically a wash, although if you were certain you could raise tax rates aggressively, a good investment would be municipals, which would rise in value as the advantage of non-federal taxable interest rose in tandem with the tax rates.</p>
<p>If you wan’t a tax debate, I don’t understand why anyone should pay a percentage of his income. I think there should be an equal per person tax. Of course, that idea is untenable because it doesn’t raise enough money. Second best would be a uniform tax rate, with no exemptions or deductions, although that suffers because it also would restrict spending and doesn’t allow for politicians to trade deductions and special incentives for votes or money. Please note that it is not a flat tax, as higher earners would pay proportionaely more in taxes than those who earn less. </p>
<p>AMT actually was a way to help lessen the deficits by removing deductions that everyone else gets from those whose income is high enough that congress deems it to be unnecessary. </p>
<p>I agree with Dstark on one point. When interest rates have been at record lows, the treasury should have been borrowing long term and locking in the low rates forever. Instead, beginning with Bob Rubin and continuing til recently, they took the rollover borrowings from the short maturity end of the yield curve (to save some bucks right now) and lost a great opportunity to insulate the government from higiher borrowing costs.</p>
<p>Dadx: that’s a hard question to answer. The simple answer has a qualifier: under our current, progressive-in-theory tax system, no. Under a flat tax system, no (the amounts should be equal). Only under a per-person tax system (the merits of which I will not debate here, as it is for another thread), yes, as I earn less money.</p>
<p>Kluge - For very pragmatic reasons, I agree with you 100% that this ever-increasing disparity of income in the US is a dangerous and unhealthy trend. History has repeatedly shown us that a dwindling, beleagured middle class is a dangerous situation because it is the ‘middlings’ who serve as a society’s social conscience and inter-class stabilizer by keeping the excesses and self-interest of the wealthy in check and ministering to the myriad needs of the poor.</p>
<p>The top one percent of taxpayers pay 34 percent of income tax. How is that fair?</p>
<p>Well I lean toward communism I guess.
I live in an urban school district with a great deal of disproportionality in the schools and their communities. At a meeting on race tonight, I heard from several students who were in tears testifying how at their school they don’t even need to bring their graphing calculators to the classroom because the school has calculators available to use, while their friends at schools across the district don’t even have textbooks available, including the lack of dictionaries in the library.
Some school communities are able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and put it all back into that school, while other schools don’t even have a PTA let alone a larger community to support that school.
I say a % of the money over a certain amount raised needs to be redistributed to the schools who have not been able to raise that amount.
What good does it do anyof us, to have citizens who are not able to be educated because of lack of books, of transportation or anything that affects their ability to learn?
Same thing with the 1% and their taxes.
How much do they need to live a luxurious life? $700,000? $1,400,500?
Tax them on the rest and do not allow them to take it out of the country to avoid taxation. When we have thousands of children going with out medical care, without food every day, in the richest country in the world, those who could ease their pain, should not be allowed to sleep.</p>
<p>Elgordo, the reason the top one percent pay 34% of the income tax is because they have the discretionary income. </p>
<p>If it makes you feel better, the top one percent don’t pay 34% of the social security taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, gasoline taxes, excise taxes, DMV fees, bridge tolls, taxes on telephone service, DSL taxes. </p>
<p>The question that should be asked is why do the masses keep voting for Republicans?</p>
<p>Because they have better campaign and PR managerds whop scare the pants off most Americans…</p>
<p>Now here if the really interesting thing. My father, a proud Republican, used to say in the 1950’s and 60’s that he voted Republican because Republicans “stayed out of our business, never got us into war, and kept a lid on spending.”</p>
<p>Forty years later, I think one party has done a major about-face and now we have alot of Democrat-acting Republicans on our hands whose policies are far more “liberal” in certain respects than any “liberal” Democrat! In fact, Democrats have become the fiscally-responsible, keep government out of oyur business, and do anything to avoid war - especially an unjust war.</p>
<p>It’s time for a new party. The Democrats have sold out.</p>
<p>Sorry to have found this thread a little late, but I found the article amuzing too! OT, I noticed from previous weekend Sunday Editions, that trophy wifes for the super rich are now also more educated/intelligent. No more the big …, big …, big…(please fill in the blank) but …(please fill in the blank).
For example the one that was on the article is married to Brian Glazer, producer of American Beauty(?), worth millions, etc, is different from the old Hollywood wifes model.</p>
<p>One of the letters to the Times on the series was from a Harvard Econ Professor, who (correctly) pointed out that this increase in wealth was a direct result of inflationary policies designed to help keep prosperity in the economy. If you let things take their own course and correct themselves once in a while (which, BTW, also keeps your powder dry for when you might really need it) you won’t get the rising tide of “risk-free” zillionaires who have the fearlessness to borrow remarkable amounts of money, confident that the fed will fix any economic hiccup with some lower rates. </p>
<p>I can’t help but be amused and surprised at all the Democratic hand wringing about “why the masses won’t take a perfectly good bribe from us” [harsh, yes, but that’s the underlying question] and continue to “vote against their economic interest”. Having grown up as a blue collar Republican, I can assure you that the people to whom that question occurs will probably never understand it.</p>
<p>Larry Kudlow opines in a column today that the NYT again plays fast and loose with statistics to hype their editorial point of view.
<a href=“http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-6_7_05_LK.html[/url]”>http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-6_7_05_LK.html</a></p>