Also, we used to have taxes like that and it worked out just fine.
We used to use black people as chattel and it worked out just fine. For their owners. This argument is really not a very good one. (Not that I disagree with you, but "we did it before and it was fine" is a shitty argument.)
On it's own, not. It is a shitty argument. But it is one piece of what can be a much greater argument of the preponderance of rationale.
Nonsense. The tax rate looked like that during the most prosperous times in American history.
You mean when Europe was rebuilding and buying all our shit?
So it was ok, then but not now for what reason?
We were also actively waging a war at that time. Also, payroll tax was effectively non-existant then, today it's an average American's greatest tax liability.
Regardless, I think such a high tax is a disincentive to do work and be successful. It also encourages people to find ways around the tax laws. I'm not saving today's tax rates are great, they aren't. The highest tax bracket in the 60s was $400K, which in today's money is about $3M. Our tax table stops at $380K today, which is way too low, as is capital gains tax. But the greatest offender is probably the sneaky decline of our corporate tax rates and excise taxes. Excise used to be 13% of tax revenue, today's is not even 2. Corporate tax revenue as a percentage of total tax revenue is half of what it was in the 60s.
My solution would probably be a marginal tax rate ramping up to at least a $1M, if not higher, and a marginal rate around 50%. Couple that with an increase in corporate tax rate and capital gains, and a god damn gasoline tax.
I have to be honest for a minute here. This is the sort of post that really pisses me off and I'll tell you why.
Your post is good up until you start talking about corporate and excise taxes. You talk about the "sneaky decline" of these two tax rates but don't mention the rates. Instead you talk about how much revenue they contribute as a percentage of total revenue. I call bullshit.
I don't have time (leaving for work) to put a big post together so I'll make it quick.
You can't yell about tax rates and then use tax revenue as a percentage of total revenue to bolster your claims. If you want to talk about tax rates then show the tax rates. If you want to talk about tax revenue as a percentage of total revenue then you also have to provide data not just on how much of the revenue is derived from a given source (corporations) but you also need to provide the historical context; are corporations paying more or less in taxes now as a percentage of their taxable revenue?
No, I understand exactly what that is and I think that is way too high of a tax rate. You're effectively punishing success at that point.
Does society need to tolerate ridiculous continued income? That level of money buys further success at negligible risk.
Also, we used to have taxes like that and it worked out just fine.
Also, it creates an incentive for said "successful" people to be charitable to take advantage of their additional income.
To add to that, even if the government taxes enough to pay for all the programs, taxing even more means we can have more programs. Obviously I'm not in favor of having stupid spending on useless shit, but I wouldn't complain about spending it on modernizing all the infrastructure. Then it wouldn't feel like traveling to the future when going abroad.
You may also recall that we have a huge debt. Obviously the debt will never be zero, but it wouldn't hurt to lower it. Taxing much more to maybe make the debt shrink would be kinda awesome.
Even assuming we get the debt down to a reasonable level, it doesn't hurt to fill up the treasury with cash for emergencies. In some mythical future where we have a balanced budget and a manageable level of debt, you would still want extra cash so that a major disaster or something doesn't unbalance that budget.
Worst case scenario the government is amazing and has taxed too much and doesn't need it. And maybe giving money back to the people will be good for the economy. In that case, you can have a tax rebate and send everyone a check for their money back, plus interest.
Also it helps to solve the problem of money turning into political power and corruption.
Scott. Scott never changes. Since the dawn of human kind, when our ancestors first discovered the power of Scott and Scott, Scott has been spilled in the name of everything: from Scott to Scott to simple, psychotic Scott.
Nonsense. The tax rate looked like that during the most prosperous times in American history.
You mean when Europe was rebuilding and buying all our shit?
So it was ok, then but not now for what reason?
We were also actively waging a war at that time. Also, payroll tax was effectively non-existant then, today it's an average American's greatest tax liability.
Regardless, I think such a high tax is a disincentive to do work and be successful. It also encourages people to find ways around the tax laws. I'm not saving today's tax rates are great, they aren't. The highest tax bracket in the 60s was $400K, which in today's money is about $3M. Our tax table stops at $380K today, which is way too low, as is capital gains tax. But the greatest offender is probably the sneaky decline of our corporate tax rates and excise taxes. Excise used to be 13% of tax revenue, today's is not even 2. Corporate tax revenue as a percentage of total tax revenue is half of what it was in the 60s.
My solution would probably be a marginal tax rate ramping up to at least a $1M, if not higher, and a marginal rate around 50%. Couple that with an increase in corporate tax rate and capital gains, and a god damn gasoline tax.
I have to be honest for a minute here. This is the sort of post that really pisses me off and I'll tell you why.
Your post is good up until you start talking about corporate and excise taxes. You talk about the "sneaky decline" of these two tax rates but don't mention the rates. Instead you talk about how much revenue they contribute as a percentage of total revenue. I call bullshit.
I don't have time (leaving for work) to put a big post together so I'll make it quick.
You can't yell about tax rates and then use tax revenue as a percentage of total revenue to bolster your claims. If you want to talk about tax rates then show the tax rates. If you want to talk about tax revenue as a percentage of total revenue then you also have to provide data not just on how much of the revenue is derived from a given source (corporations) but you also need to provide the historical context; are corporations paying more or less in taxes now as a percentage of their taxable revenue?
You have made excellent criticisms of my post, but I too have more important things to do than argue on the internet. Hence that is why I don't have all the relevant details you referenced. But I think talking about taxes as a total percentage of tax revenue is relevant as the whole idea here is to distribute the tax burden in some sort of equatable way.
No, I understand exactly what that is and I think that is way too high of a tax rate. You're effectively punishing success at that point.
Does society need to tolerate ridiculous continued income? That level of money buys further success at negligible risk.
Also, we used to have taxes like that and it worked out just fine.
Also, it creates an incentive for said "successful" people to be charitable to take advantage of their additional income.
To add to that, even if the government taxes enough to pay for all the programs, taxing even more means we can have more programs. Obviously I'm not in favor of having stupid spending on useless shit, but I wouldn't complain about spending it on modernizing all the infrastructure. Then it wouldn't feel like traveling to the future when going abroad.
You may also recall that we have a huge debt. Obviously the debt will never be zero, but it wouldn't hurt to lower it. Taxing much more to maybe make the debt shrink would be kinda awesome.
Even assuming we get the debt down to a reasonable level, it doesn't hurt to fill up the treasury with cash for emergencies. In some mythical future where we have a balanced budget and a manageable level of debt, you would still want extra cash so that a major disaster or something doesn't unbalance that budget.
Worst case scenario the government is amazing and has taxed too much and doesn't need it. And maybe giving money back to the people will be good for the economy. In that case, you can have a tax rebate and send everyone a check for their money back, plus interest.
Also it helps to solve the problem of money turning into political power and corruption.
You make good points and I agree, I just don't think a massive increase in personal income tax is the best way to accomplish it. I really think we need a gasoline tax in this country, for the revenue and the disincentive to waste fuel.
Gasoline tax is also good, because I do agree it would decrease fuel usage and increase revenue. There is a problem though, in that gasoline tax is a regressive tax. It hurts poor people big time and rich people don't even notice.
Poor people living in rural areas. I want them to move to a city and use public transportation, but they aren't right now. Also, some of them are farming and such. These people can not get anywhere without driving. They also have to drive far distances because they are in the sticks. They also have to drive gas guzzling trucks to get their jobs done. They have to use gas to power machinery like tractors. That increased gas tax will turn into higher food prices and so on and so forth.
Let's say you make a 20% gas tax. Now a huge percentage of that poor person's total income is gone to tax spent on food and gas and other things. Meanwhile the rich guy barely notices that it costs $2000 extra to refuel his jet or buy fancy dinner because he is so insanely rich.
Then we have a deep philosophical difference regarding taxes. I do not believe in using the tax code to enact "fairness".
I don't either. My ideology is actually the same as yours.
The difference I I accept the fact that ideology and reality don't mix. It's ok to have an ideology, it's just moronic to think that any ideal is realistic or can even be striven for. Ideal world? No taxes at all. That is impractical and will never work. What does work? What can get the job done? The only way to make the society workable and solve real problems is more taxes.
We have goals, to fix this shit. More taxes is the optimal path to fixing this shit, so fucking do it no matter how fair or unfair it may be.
Gasoline isn't that expensive. a F150 driven 15000 miles a year has an annual fuel cost of $3440. A 20% increase is $4128. Now the real problem is that poor people live paycheck to paycheck. I mean how many families wrote into the whitehouse to say how much they needed $40 a week. People need to learn to manage their money better.
Gasoline isn't that expensive. a F150 driven 15000 miles a year has an annual fuel cost of $3440. A 20% increase is $4128. Now the real problem is that poor people live paycheck to paycheck. I mean how many families wrote into the whitehouse to say how much they needed $40 a week. People need to learn to manage their money better.
So people living paycheck to paycheck just need to manage their money better? I'm not sure you've thought that through. You can't magically make more money by managing it better. While many people can manage their money better, some people simply have trouble making ends meet because of realistic expenses. I mean, you could argue that if you can't afford the fuel for a F150 you shouldn't buy one and should instead get a used Civic. But what if you need the carrying capacity of the F150 for work because you are a construction worker or something?
I don't think living paycheck to paycheck is necessarily the result of mismanagement.
Then we have a deep philosophical difference regarding taxes. I do not believe in using the tax code to enact "fairness".
We already have a gasoline tax in the USA.
You can't enact fairness through one way alone. It's gotta be a far more broad set of things. For instance, increase tax revenue to a sane level (including corporate taxes and what-have-you) and use higher tax rates to encourage philanthropy and hiring through hiring tax breaks.
In addition, do things like building up our education system and making it easier for low income and underprivileged (ie. going to shitty high school) kids to get a good secondary and possibly post-secondary education. This will in turn help make them more competitive for good jobs, and companies will get better workers.
Scott, I'm not advocating for no taxes. You are right though, I'm you in ten years.
Why wait on education until after kids have wasted 12 years in a crap school? Help those kids NOW!
I'm all for fairness of opportunity but I'm against the philosophy of fairness of outcomes.
That's unfair to say, at all. You were married, Scott will not have been married.
Also, you are right. Making it easier to get into a good college and get a worthwhile education starts in early grades. I am a fan of improving education across the board. Hell, just make it easier for me and other interested parties to go volunteer at schools and get kids excited about science and computers. Right now I would have to take precious vacation time to go do that, and so generally I don't.
Gasoline isn't that expensive. a F150 driven 15000 miles a year has an annual fuel cost of $3440. A 20% increase is $4128. Now the real problem is that poor people live paycheck to paycheck. I mean how many families wrote into the whitehouse to say how much they needed $40 a week. People need to learn to manage their money better.
You do know what the average family of 4 makes. 40 dollars extra a week can be a big boost.
Gasoline isn't that expensive. a F150 driven 15000 miles a year has an annual fuel cost of $3440. A 20% increase is $4128. Now the real problem is that poor people live paycheck to paycheck. I mean how many families wrote into the whitehouse to say how much they needed $40 a week. People need to learn to manage their money better.
You do know what the average family of 4 makes. 40 dollars extra a week can be a big boost.
I still believe that if $40 makes or breaks you, you're managing your money wrong.
Gasoline isn't that expensive. a F150 driven 15000 miles a year has an annual fuel cost of $3440. A 20% increase is $4128. Now the real problem is that poor people live paycheck to paycheck. I mean how many families wrote into the whitehouse to say how much they needed $40 a week. People need to learn to manage their money better.
You do know what the average family of 4 makes. 40 dollars extra a week can be a big boost.
I still believe that if $40 makes or breaks you, you're managing your money wrong.
Do you not understand how poor some people are? They make minimum wage at two jobs. Hardly sleep. Only spend money on necessities like food, shelter, car, bills, health care, etc. And they barely scrape by without any savings or luxuries at all. They take their remaining dollars after the bills are paid to the grocery store and even with food stamps, if they qualify, don't get enough food for everyone to eat.
If they encounter even one hardship or expense they are fucked. Car broke down? Fucked. Medical trouble? Fucked. Need plumbing fixed or something? Fucked. Have a kid? Fucked. These people do not have enough money to survive no matter how frugal and careful they are because they do not make a living wage.
Let's give you $15,000 a year with no benefits and see how well you get by. Maybe you'll scrape by living very frugally only on the necessities. Great. Now you break your leg and the hospital wants thousands of dollars because you have no insurance. Now what genius? Even the minor increase like you said, $40. That's one less trip to the grocery store this month. Guess we have to cut out either lunch or breakfast.
I'm also looking at a $6K+ tax bill when I file. If I could cut the spouse payments I would be OK. If I could cut them completely I'd be debt free in two years.
Gasoline isn't that expensive. a F150 driven 15000 miles a year has an annual fuel cost of $3440. A 20% increase is $4128. Now the real problem is that poor people live paycheck to paycheck. I mean how many families wrote into the whitehouse to say how much they needed $40 a week. People need to learn to manage their money better.
You do know what the average family of 4 makes. 40 dollars extra a week can be a big boost.
I still believe that if $40 makes or breaks you, you're managing your money wrong.
Do you not understand how poor some people are? They make minimum wage at two jobs. Hardly sleep. Only spend money on necessities like food, shelter, car, bills, health care, etc. And they barely scrape by without any savings or luxuries at all. They take their remaining dollars after the bills are paid to the grocery store and even with food stamps, if they qualify, don't get enough food for everyone to eat.
If they encounter even one hardship or expense they are fucked. Car broke down? Fucked. Medical trouble? Fucked. Need plumbing fixed or something? Fucked. Have a kid? Fucked. These people do not have enough money to survive no matter how frugal and careful they are because they do not make a living wage.
Let's give you $15,000 a year with no benefits and see how well you get by. Maybe you'll scrape by living very frugally only on the necessities. Great. Now you break your leg and the hospital wants thousands of dollars because you have no insurance. Now what genius? Even the minor increase like you said, $40. That's one less trip to the grocery store this month. Guess we have to cut out either lunch or breakfast.
I never said that I thought poor people managed their money poorly, I think it's an endemic problem at all levels of income. There are lots of people in the middle class who are living effectively paycheck to paycheck.
Gasoline isn't that expensive. a F150 driven 15000 miles a year has an annual fuel cost of $3440. A 20% increase is $4128. Now the real problem is that poor people live paycheck to paycheck. I mean how many families wrote into the whitehouse to say how much they needed $40 a week. People need to learn to manage their money better.
You do know what the average family of 4 makes. 40 dollars extra a week can be a big boost.
I still believe that if $40 makes or breaks you, you're managing your money wrong.
Do you not understand how poor some people are? They make minimum wage at two jobs. Hardly sleep. Only spend money on necessities like food, shelter, car, bills, health care, etc. And they barely scrape by without any savings or luxuries at all. They take their remaining dollars after the bills are paid to the grocery store and even with food stamps, if they qualify, don't get enough food for everyone to eat.
If they encounter even one hardship or expense they are fucked. Car broke down? Fucked. Medical trouble? Fucked. Need plumbing fixed or something? Fucked. Have a kid? Fucked. These people do not have enough money to survive no matter how frugal and careful they are because they do not make a living wage.
Let's give you $15,000 a year with no benefits and see how well you get by. Maybe you'll scrape by living very frugally only on the necessities. Great. Now you break your leg and the hospital wants thousands of dollars because you have no insurance. Now what genius? Even the minor increase like you said, $40. That's one less trip to the grocery store this month. Guess we have to cut out either lunch or breakfast.
I never said that I thought poor people managed their money poorly, I think it's an endemic problem at all levels of income. There are lots of people in the middle class who are living effectively paycheck to paycheck.
I do not disagree with you there. I know plenty of peoples who could be living just fine, but blow all their moneys.
But what you said specifically was that "if $40 makes or breaks you, you are managing your money wrong". There are a lot of people out there who do manage their money very well, and can still be broken by $40. I mean if people like Rym are in the top 5% think about how much money people have in the bottom %10? Bottom %20? No matter how well you manage that money, you are fucked. And that's 1 out of every five people.
Comments
Your post is good up until you start talking about corporate and excise taxes. You talk about the "sneaky decline" of these two tax rates but don't mention the rates. Instead you talk about how much revenue they contribute as a percentage of total revenue. I call bullshit.
I don't have time (leaving for work) to put a big post together so I'll make it quick.
You can't yell about tax rates and then use tax revenue as a percentage of total revenue to bolster your claims. If you want to talk about tax rates then show the tax rates. If you want to talk about tax revenue as a percentage of total revenue then you also have to provide data not just on how much of the revenue is derived from a given source (corporations) but you also need to provide the historical context; are corporations paying more or less in taxes now as a percentage of their taxable revenue?
You may also recall that we have a huge debt. Obviously the debt will never be zero, but it wouldn't hurt to lower it. Taxing much more to maybe make the debt shrink would be kinda awesome.
Even assuming we get the debt down to a reasonable level, it doesn't hurt to fill up the treasury with cash for emergencies. In some mythical future where we have a balanced budget and a manageable level of debt, you would still want extra cash so that a major disaster or something doesn't unbalance that budget.
Worst case scenario the government is amazing and has taxed too much and doesn't need it. And maybe giving money back to the people will be good for the economy. In that case, you can have a tax rebate and send everyone a check for their money back, plus interest.
Also it helps to solve the problem of money turning into political power and corruption.
(Edit;God guys get back on topic!)
Poor people living in rural areas. I want them to move to a city and use public transportation, but they aren't right now. Also, some of them are farming and such. These people can not get anywhere without driving. They also have to drive far distances because they are in the sticks. They also have to drive gas guzzling trucks to get their jobs done. They have to use gas to power machinery like tractors. That increased gas tax will turn into higher food prices and so on and so forth.
Let's say you make a 20% gas tax. Now a huge percentage of that poor person's total income is gone to tax spent on food and gas and other things. Meanwhile the rich guy barely notices that it costs $2000 extra to refuel his jet or buy fancy dinner because he is so insanely rich.
We already have a gasoline tax in the USA.
The difference I I accept the fact that ideology and reality don't mix. It's ok to have an ideology, it's just moronic to think that any ideal is realistic or can even be striven for. Ideal world? No taxes at all. That is impractical and will never work. What does work? What can get the job done? The only way to make the society workable and solve real problems is more taxes.
We have goals, to fix this shit. More taxes is the optimal path to fixing this shit, so fucking do it no matter how fair or unfair it may be.
I don't think living paycheck to paycheck is necessarily the result of mismanagement.
In addition, do things like building up our education system and making it easier for low income and underprivileged (ie. going to shitty high school) kids to get a good secondary and possibly post-secondary education. This will in turn help make them more competitive for good jobs, and companies will get better workers.
Why wait on education until after kids have wasted 12 years in a crap school? Help those kids NOW!
I'm all for fairness of opportunity but I'm against the philosophy of fairness of outcomes.
Also, you are right. Making it easier to get into a good college and get a worthwhile education starts in early grades. I am a fan of improving education across the board. Hell, just make it easier for me and other interested parties to go volunteer at schools and get kids excited about science and computers. Right now I would have to take precious vacation time to go do that, and so generally I don't.
If they encounter even one hardship or expense they are fucked. Car broke down? Fucked. Medical trouble? Fucked. Need plumbing fixed or something? Fucked. Have a kid? Fucked. These people do not have enough money to survive no matter how frugal and careful they are because they do not make a living wage.
Let's give you $15,000 a year with no benefits and see how well you get by. Maybe you'll scrape by living very frugally only on the necessities. Great. Now you break your leg and the hospital wants thousands of dollars because you have no insurance. Now what genius? Even the minor increase like you said, $40. That's one less trip to the grocery store this month. Guess we have to cut out either lunch or breakfast.
But what you said specifically was that "if $40 makes or breaks you, you are managing your money wrong". There are a lot of people out there who do manage their money very well, and can still be broken by $40. I mean if people like Rym are in the top 5% think about how much money people have in the bottom %10? Bottom %20? No matter how well you manage that money, you are fucked. And that's 1 out of every five people.