Or not pay their fair share of taxes. When Warren Buffet's secretary pays a higher tax rate, something is wrong. <iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Cu5B-2LoC4s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The obvious solution is to split the country into two or more separate sovereign countries, each with its own pro-rated share of the current debt. Let you parasites figure out how to make your socialistic BS work on your own dime. I don't even want to debate you any more, I just don't want to live under the same governance structure as you. I'd prefer that your politics mattered as much to me as the average Canadian's politics. Seriously, for what earthly reason is the fiction that this is one country being maintained? The amount of time wasted debating things that aren't really legitimately debatable is ridiculous and the idea that you could ever say anything that I would consider even in the ballpark of rational is absurd. I consider you and your kind as foreign to me as I consider a native of any other country foreign. Heck, I actually don't even consider you a human being and I hope you DIAF. Then, I hope they bring you back to life at the hospital and then the hospital burns down and you die a second time. Only, the second time, I hope your family is standing by your hospital bed and dies with you.
So the gov't forcing one person to give a little less money in income taxes (while "the poor" continue to pay nothing) = theft from the poor? Absurd. People are really getting brainwashed. Once again, Mencken's definition of a demagogue = Obama to the core: "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." As for Warren Buffett's secretary paying a higher tax rate than he does, I'm not for that either. The whole system--with all its loopholes, special favors and social engineering attempts--has its own absurd results. I'm for scrapping the whole thing and replacing it with some type of flat tax. But it's equally absurd that people who don't work at all can game the system and live better than lower-middle class folk who work their tails off. Also, the Warren Buffett thing is kind of a red herring--he isn't the typical rich guy. The small business owner who makes $220K/year pays a lot more taxes than his secretrary.
I didn't say the poor are stupid, it's that they put their energy into pursuits that are stupid. I've known poor people who will spend as much time thinking up a way to scam the government or some other person as a rich person will spend thinking up a way to get richer. The poor spend their time on things that keep them poor, the rich spend their time on things that make them richer. Again, I've spent my life in the presence of both, so I've had the chance to compare.
Yeah, big problem with that is that there are only so many government services a Warren Buffett needs, so asking him to pay the same rate as his secretary means that he's vastly overpaying relative to the level of service he requires. If you allocate all federal spending by income, the top payers of income tax pay far more into the federal government than they get out in benefit, even at today's rates. The bottom 80% by income pay in less than they get in benefits, so I can see why they don't complain, but I get screwed by thousands of dollars every year. What, I'm supposed to just ignore that fact? Why should the random fact that I was born in a certain country cost me money? Put simply, because of people like you with your petty envy, making a high income in the US is a negative proposition vis-a-vis value for your tax dollars. I get value for my money in all other transactions, I don't think government should be any different. If they are going to take out so much in tax, I should get dollar-for-dollar back in benefits. And don't give me some "patriotism, blah, blah, blah". The Left killed patriotism and you don't get to use it when it's convenient to your argument.
Yeah, outside a few free-spirited, live-off-the-land ex-hippies in Vermont, the Left absolutely hates this idea. But it makes perfect sense. Let's just peacefully secede. The collectivists can have Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Oprah, Soros and 90% of Hollywood to fund their utopia. We'll see how long those ideologues practice what they preach.
Warren Buffett Is Wrong On Taxes Millionaires and billionaires pay a higher share of their income in taxes than the middle class. By STEPHEN MOORE The Oracle of Omaha is at it again. On July 7, Warren Buffett told Bloomberg: "I think the rich have a responsibility to pay higher tax rates." Then he groused that his wealthy friends are "paying lower tax rates than the people who are serving us the food." Mr. Buffett has been voicing this complaint for years, once observing that his personal tax rate of 17.7% is lower than that of his receptionist (30%). During Monday night's national address, President Obama recited the Buffet line that millionaires and billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Democrats in Congress routinely cite Mr. Buffett's tax confessions as irrefutable evidence that tax rates on the very rich are too low and the system is unfair. And the system would be unfair, if Mr. Buffett's tax facts were the whole truth. But they aren't. I don't know the details of Warren Buffet's personal taxes, and he hasn't made them public. But the IRS does provide reliable data on effective tax ratesâthe overall share of their income that various groups pay in federal income taxes (not including state or local taxes) after accounting for all deductions and exemptions. These are different than marginal tax rates, which are paid on the next dollar of income and now peak at 35% for individuals. IRS data for 2008, for example, show that households in the top 10% of earners (above about $114,000) paid 19% of their income to the feds. Those in the top 1% (above $380,000) paid 23.3%. The top 0.1% of earners, with incomes of $2 million or more, end up paying a slightly lower tax of 22.7%, because they get more of their income from investments (more about this below). So what about the rest of us? According to IRS data, a median-income household ($35,000) in 2008 paid about 4% of its income in federal income tax. Mr. Buffett may have been referring to all federal taxes, not just income taxes, when he said the rich pay less than others. His secretary and most workers in America do pay a lot in Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, but even accounting for them the federal system is highly progressive. .According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), middle-class families in 2007 (earning between $34,000 and $50,000) paid an effective 14.3% of their income in all federal taxes. The top 5% of income earners paid 27.9% and the top 1% paid 29.5%. And what about the highest earners? Americans with annual incomes above $2 million paid an average 32% of their income in federal taxes in 2005 (the most recent year for which data are available). So how does Mr. Buffett arrive at such a low personal tax rate? He may have been referring to a 2010 IRS study of the 400 richest American taxpayers, a list he's probably on. It showed those people paid an effective federal income tax of 18.1% in 2008. Yet that study crucially omits the corporate income tax, which is mostly borne by the owners of companies. Mr. Buffett owns about one-quarter of his investment company Berkshire Hathaway, and his shares are worth about $38 billion. This wealth is mostly stored in what are technically called "unrealized capital gains." Eventually when those gains are converted into income, he will pay a capital gains tax. Even so, in 2008 Berkshire paid $3 billion in corporate taxes. And since Mr. Buffett is the principal owner, he shoulders a big share of that tax. The reason for the light capital gains and dividend tax is that corporations pay up to a 35% tax on their profits before a dime of it is passed on to shareholders. The real tax rate on corporate income paid to individuals through capital gains and dividends is not 15%. It is closer to 45% once you count the tax on corporate profits. If the dividend tax rises to 20% next year from 15% today, then the total tax on dividends paid to shareholders would be closer to 50%, and that doesn't include state and local taxes. To his credit, Mr. Buffett has criticized President Obama's near-obsessive calls for higher taxes on corporate jets. As Mr. Buffet correctly noted, the writeoffs companies take for capital expenditures such as jets are legitimate business expenses. Overall, though, Warren Buffett is wrong on taxes. The tax system is already far too reliant on the wealthy to pay the government's bills. Taxes on millionaires and billionaires are already near a record high in terms of the share of all income taxes paid. And the effective tax rate on this group is much higher, not lower, than any other income category. The best way to balance the budget is for the economy to produce a lot more American success stories like Warren Buffett. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...6466541882356616.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Oh, please. The idea that there is some valid, objective statistical analysis out there that supports your thesis is ridiculous. 99.9% of the people who "study" this "problem" are Leftist ideologues who just make sh!t up to fit their predefined conclusion or are naive grad students who get told sob stories by manipulative poor people who are trying to get sympathy (and more government cheese). The value of experience when it comes to matters of why the rich are rich and the poor are poor trumps all the master's and doctoral theses in all university libraries. That you think otherwise just self-identifies you as a naive dupe.