liberals have the mentality of 5 year olds, lol. http://www.thepiratescove.us/2007/03/06/comedian-liberals-are-like-5-year-olds/
I'll start off by saying that I would LOVE a 15% flat tax. That is one of the best ideas which I wish would get embraced. I'd love a consumption tax if there was a way to make that work but doing a little devils advocate here.... Isn't it in the best interest of the rich to have a strong happy middle class? If the middle class is on a consumption strike because they don't have money then how is Bill Gates going to make money? How is Steve Jobs gonna swim in his pile of cash without Joe the plumber wasting his money on an overpriced commodity? I don't know of too many people that got rich without making their money from the middle and lower class in one way or another. Yes there are a lot of people that are scamming the system with things like pensions as was mentioned previously, but there are a lot of people that dont' get pensions. So is it really that awful if the rich get a 3% tax increase? Obviously if they wanted to raise the tax on the rich to 50 or 60% that is socialist and flat out wrong, but I don't think anyone is proposing that. Doesn't a capitalist market REQUIRE a strong middle class consumer?
The very stong middle and lower upper class in the U.S. was GROWN with small business owners. Yes, I fully agree that we MUST have a stong middle class to have the most optimal economic environment for the U.S. (the middle class based off the foundation of small business is what USED to make our country economically strong). 15% income tax would be brilliant.......15% payroll withholding of all income through an employer. All other income from capital gains, small business, etc is handled on a simple quarterly online filing (with the April 15th quarterly filing settling up for any non-standard items from the previous tax year). We could then GUT the size of the IRS and send MANY tax attorneys/accountants out looking for new work!!!!!
I'm still interested in a consumption tax. It would be interesting if the only tax you paid was a sales tax of 15% on all items purchased. The more you consume the more you pay, hell you'd finally snag the drug dealers and the black market into paying taxes. Illegal aliens would now be paying tax as well since if they buy anything they will get taxed. Anybody have info on this? I heard a little bit about it from a friend and it sounded intriguing but I'm sure there's a lot of downsides.
It seems the conservatives hate it. Why give away the wealth someone earned via higher taxes to someone else that doesn't make much money? That's class warfare...you are punishing the rich people by raising their taxes to pay for the lower taxes of the middle class. You're redistributing wealth. That's Un-American! Oh wait a second. For the past 8 years this is exactly what has been going on! The very thing you conservatives hate is HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. The only difference is the wealth has been being distributed to the very rich class. The middle class pay much more on a percentage basis than the very rich, so effectively the middle class is paying for the tax cuts on the rich. The middle class is being punished...well...for no good reason. Don't take my word for it, look at the stats. For the past years the wealth has been trickling up to the top more and more. Class warfare? The top 5% hold 50% of all the wealth and growing, while the middle class has seen their wages stall or drop. This IS class warfare. wow, liberal idiocy never ceases to amaze me. Hey jonbig, do you understand that the cash from taxes is not distributed back to the rich? Most of the recipients are at the bottom. About $2 trillion goes to supporting the fucked up sense of 'retirement for all' and free health care entitlement that you morons are responsible for. Not to mention all the cash now going for the fucked up liberal housing for the poor mess that gave us this crisis. In fact the taxes are paying for massive entitlement programs that right now are about 60 trillion in the hole as far as future unfunded mandates. Yet jonbig thinks this is wealth transfer upwards. Study the history of sweden over the 40 years if you want to know how these fucked up liberals will fuck us over.
Would have to be at least 20% as the US Government historically takes in 19% regardless of tax rates. They go high, people avoid, etc. Weird how it works, but its true. At 15% deficits would grow even faster unless spending was seriously cut!!! There is the issue. Cut the fucking spending!!!
I try my best to avoid talking about politics and religion with others. The truth hurts and people deserve better than the truth. The wealthy do pay the government to take care of the poor. The poor has and always will bitch about how unjust society is. The trout doesn't bitch about how great the shark has it, it just lives its life to the fullest. You may give the best effort you're capable of and still fail. That's life. Your potential is in direct correlation to your responsibility (read: your ability to respond). Non-response is a response (and the worst response at that). Most of the non-wealthy individuals have a poor paradigm. They have a scarcity mentality that there's not enough wealth to go around. Have you ever noticed that when you go to the zoo you see that huge elephant attached to that little stake and chain? It's attached there because at some point in its life it was convinced that it couldn't break away. If that elephant even so much as tried to move a pinky he could break away. That's how powerful limiting beliefs are. We are (or were), at some point, held down by the same limiting beliefs. The only difference between those who broke away and those who are still attached was a simple decision. I don't know what that decision is for the individual. If you don't know what that decision is then that there is what's wrong.
Yeah, Australia has a 10% "goods and services " tax, which applies to almost everything, sans business exemptions and some basic foodstuffs in effect. Paul Hewson, a losing liberal leader, campaigned for a 15% consumption tax, while Keating "The recession we had to have" guy, despite the fact Keating, as a labor party shadow treasurer, had long advocated a broad based consumption tax. Right, onto the fun stuff. Australia has a basic comparability to california, in GDP and population, at least 10/15 years ago it did. Problem? They already took between 20-40 percent ballpark income tax, before local council rates, before capital gains, before everything, including interest rates. It should be noted, Australia has three tiers of government, and 6 states plus two territories, same difference. for said population So, whats wrong with a flat consumption tax? It doesn't pay the guvernator enough dinars, to keep the ball rolling. A hand in the pocket at every step, even (especially) low income earners or pensioners, effectively lose 10% of the remarkable gratuity the government has bestowed on them, straight back through an inefficient tax system, that burdens employers and small business overwhelmingly. Were it not for the monumental mining giant exporters, and the laughably deregulated banking system, (imposed by US interests) that currently hold up the ASX 200, Australia might as well be......New zealand. Smoke and mirrors, so it is clear to me, that-for any sort of civilised society, should it be based on a PURE flat consumption tax, you would be looking at......wait for it-im guessing, 40-60 percent, just to stop society devolving into utter chaos and anarchy. Order doesn't come cheap, however i will grant you no country has been bold enough to try it. Also goog britains "VAT", the difficulty is they are introduced as supplements to current taxation, not a complete alternative. and they invariably end up filling coffers, and doing little social good. BTW, Australia's "Goods and services Tax" (vat clone) was introduced by the venerable John Howard PM, who never, ever received any public mandate to do so, and was elected partly on his promise that"never, ever" would he introduce this tax. He did. I present this as a microcosm of economics.
I rather imagine they wouldn't, given the two species don't have much, if anything to do with each other. Separate planes of existence, presumably what you were trying to get at.
I'm not concerned about the poor so much as the middle class. You say the income doesnt transfer to them. did you not see the chart? what you are saying is not going to happen is already happening. You can say that it doesnt happen but right now TODAY the rich's income is growing while the middle class's is not. I'm not saying gov. spending isn't out of control, we all know it is and we can all agree on that. You mention entitlements and once again that goes to the bottom 25% or so who make diddly. Whether our not they are receiving too much of our tax dollars is not my point. That money doesn't go to the middle class...your average everyday family of four. So for the sake of argument lets say hat the government spend too much money on entitlements for the bottom 25% or so. We'll call it entitlement money. My point is that the middle class pay more (on a percentage basis) than the upper class do. Both classes are paying for the "entitlement money"..but the middle class is paying a higher percentage of their income for it.