Why would he advocate that? So that wealth can be redistributed, of course. We are long past the point where any reasonable allocation of government benefits would show that "the rich" would benefit at all from raising taxes. All of the tax revenue from such a rise in rates, if it generated any incremental revenue at all, would go to those further down the income scale. If your household makes less than ~$85K, regardless of the fact that you pay taxes, you get back more in benefits than you pay in taxes. Above that, you are paying above and beyond any reasonable allocation of benefits. I know that some extremists will say that the military only benefits war-profiteers, but come on, every American benefits from lower oil prices and consumer goods prices due to the American military. Our main problem is that we can't stop other nations from free-riding on that military presence. How much does a guy like Romney benefit from government spending, though? He's certain a beneficiary of true public goods like roads, but does he use them hundreds of times more frequently than someone who pays 1% of the amount of tax Romney pays? No, because to do so, he would have to dedicate his entire life just to using roads built with Federal dollars. So the guy pays $2 million in taxes, gets, what, at most $500K in benefits, and people still give him sh!t? It's repellent to talk about a "fair share" of taxes without talking about a fair share of benefits. When Obama says that some people have prospered disproportionately, so they should pay more, well, those people prospered in private transactions, not at the expense of the state. It's complete and utter demagoguery. If anyone should be complaining about Mitt Romney's wealth, it's the people on the other side of those Bain Capital transactions. Find me a rich guy who made his money ripping off the government (good example was that company in Massachusetts that sold the government a bunch of crappy cement mix that led to some deaths in the tunnels built during the Big Dig) and there's a guy who needs to pay more to reach his "fair share". A guy like Romney, though, even if I were in the income bucket where I benefit more from taxes paid than I paid in, I would be against a policy of raising his taxes. I'd rather earn my own way in this world than rely on people like Barack Obama to earn it for me by stealing from someone else. That's the only honorable stance.
Did you see this from a big Obama supporter? The first minute and a half is all "yadda yadda yadda, I'll gladly pay higher taxes" and then the reporter tells him about the 75% number. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDaQXpgItKo
The way this data was was used by Mitt Romney is an entertaining example of how politicians take real data and use it in an attempt to mislead in a way that suits their purposes without actually lying. During the campaign Romney, while recounting a long list of Obama failures and the sad state of the U.S. economy, noted that under Obama middle class incomes had declined by five thousand dollars --never mind that by the time Romney made this statement incomes had already recovered by 20%! The Romney statement is factually correct! And it is also truly startling until one realizes that those who did not lose their jobs when the recession hit in early 2009 did not see any reduction in income at all and may have seen an increase. The entire drop in middle class incomes was due to averaging-in people who lost jobs and went onto unemployment. Their incomes obviously had to drop by a good deal more than $5000 on average! Romney's statement transitions from the merely misleading to absurdly silly when it is realized that Obama had nothing whatsoever to do with this drop, as he wasn't inaugurated until late January of 2009, and by then the events that underlay the unemployment explosion had all transpired. Oh well, that's politics for you! All is fair in love, war, and politics.
I like Rush Limbaugh's definition of "income redistribution". According to Rush it is taking money from someone who earned it and giving it to someone who didn't. That's the best definition I've heard so far! Accordingly, taking all of Romney's income and giving it to anyone else can't qualify as income redistribution because all of Romney's income is "unearned".
Oh, come on. I have no idea if you are a real trader or not, but anyone who's ever put their capital out at-risk and lost it, definitely knows what it's like to "lose" income, so the obverse of that is clearly "earning" income. The only way an individual could have "unearned" income is through counterfeiting. If you're using post-tax dollars to invest or trade, there's really no legitimate reason for them to be taxed again, much less to be redistributed. The entire government should be funded by user fees. In a pinch, I'd concede to a consumption tax. Make the costs of government transparent to its users and make it more difficult to buy votes, either with tax cuts or increased redistribution. Don't use it, don't pay for it. Don't consume, don't pay the consumption tax. The only exceptions I can think of would be border security, military and the judiciary. If the user fees and consumption tax didn't raise enough to pay for those, assess a per capita tax for 1 year. For any other spending beyond those three areas, debt issuance by the Treasury has to be approved in a national referendum. That way, only things that truly benefit the entire nation will get approved, rather than local pork barrel spending agreed to in back-room deals. Congressional representatives will then be measured by their ability to persuade the country that their pet projects are beneficial, rather than just on their ability to go along to get along with everyone's spending.
Or income redistribution. Admittedly, according to the left it is earned, though. Earned by being born.
Joking, of course. However by the IRS definition of "earned" income, virtually all of Romney's income is unearned.
IRS officials face grilling over lavish spending why i'm paying my taxes? what for? for them to partying? we all should protest and stop paying the f** taxes. fuck it. or those IRS f**rs should go to prison or fired and ordered to pay it back Dennis Kozlowski doing his time,why they are different? put them to jail