The Redhunter

If you the top 1% who receives 21.8 % of all income and own about 39% of all wealth, you should be paying a higher tax rate than your secretary who is paying a 25% effective tax rate and whose demographic, along with the bottom 150,000,000 Americans, receive less income than the top 300,000 income earners in America.

-In 1977 the income share of the top 1% was at about 10% of all wage earners, today it's 24%, back to where it was just before the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.

-In the 1970s, the average CEO made 30 times what an hourly worker made. Today, a CEO makes 300 times what an hourly worker makes.

-In 2004, average employee compensation in the U.S. fell for the first time in 14 years
From 1983-1998 the change in net worth for the bottom 40% was -76% but the change for the top 1% was +42% and those numbers are probably far more drastic today.

-In the same time period, the change in income from the bottom 20% was -5% while the top 5% saw a 64% increase

-Nearly 80% of all economic gains made in the past thirty years have gone to the richest 1%

-The capital gains taxes now are 1/3 of what they were under Reagan and the top income tax rate is 50% lower than what it was in 1970

-In 2005 incomes (reported incomes) rose 9% but the bottom 90% of income earners saw a .6% decrease while the top 1% saw a 14% increase. THIS IS CLASS WARFARE!!

Under the Clinton tax rates poverty hit a 26 year low in 2000 and has risen since then.

The bottom 80% of all income earners own less than $250,000 in wealth and the bottom 20% own close to 0 wealth....Those bottom 80% should not be paying higher taxes than the top 20% because they get so much less back from the Government and don't benefit nearly as much as the people who get to write our laws and elect our politicians and fund their campaigns. You get what you pay for. If you get more, you should pay more.

It's like this, two guys meet at a restaurant for dinner, one valeted his car, ordered appetizers, Champagne, Surf and Turf and a desert...The other guy took the bus, ordered a Burrito and a Corona...Who should pay more?? Republicans would say they should split the bill down the middle, Democrats would say the guy who got more, should pay more. Simple logic really.

If you have any more questions about what is fair, I will be glad to assist you.

Oh and as far as the punishment thing goes, consider this, 5 out of the 10 richest people in America, INHERITED their wealth...They did not work for it...Mitt Romney does not work! Don't give me this crap about "punishing success"...It's a class war, ____ statement made up by the right.

Toad - you are motivated entirely by your own greed for other people's money and envy that others are doing better financially than you. So sad.

It matters not a whit how someone came by their money. Whether it was through inheritance, wise investment, working as a crane operator at a construction site, as a salesperson, or as the local zoning administrator or at a venture capital money is not relevant, and no reason to get mad at someone over it.

It also matters not a whit what corporate leaders make. That you are so obsessed with this is a result of your greed and envy.

You seem to think that people stay in one financial class their entire lives. The truth, as Tom Sowell has pointed out time and again, is that people move from one group to another quite rapidly. So that most of your upper income earners were once low income, and it actually works in reverse too. Your fallacy is in assuming that people stay in one class, rich, middle class, or poor, their entire lives.

Your example of the people in the restaurant does not equate to taxes. Of course people who make more money should pay more. At a 10 percent tax rate f you make a million dollars you pay $100,000, and if you make $100,000 you pay only $10,000. See? The person who makes more pays more. What you want is a steeply "progressive" rate, which is a result of your greed and envy.

Mitt Romeny made a lot of money earlier in life and invested it wisely. That he is able to live off of the interest is admirable, not something to get mad at him about.

Finally - I deleted your curse word at the end of your comment. Cursing is not allowed on this blog, and if you do it again or complain about the policy I won't let your comments out of moderationl.

Tom, are you aware that the first national income tax enacted by Congress and President Lincoln in 1862 was a PROGRESSIVE income tax. The more you made, the higher percentage you paid. Was Lincoln a socialist, class warrior, motivated by greed for other people's money?

Hi Barry, thank you for stopping by and for leaving a comment.

Actually I wasn't aware of the Revenue Act of 1861, so thank you for that information.

I don't believe I said that anyone who favors a progressive tax is a socialist or class warrior, motivated by greed and all that. If that's what it appears I said then I apologize for my lack of clarity and poor writing.

I'm actually fine with somewhat of a progressive tax, but I do think it should be flatter than it is now. And everyone should pay at least something, even if only symbolic.

It's also just that there is a certain type on the left for whom taxes on "the wealthy" can never be high enough, and their motivation for such an attitude does seem more driven by the factors you mention. I suppose I got a little carried away, especially when dealing with dopes like Toad.

I agree with a lot of what you say in this post, especially about everyone sharing in the costs. It just bothers me when people on your side try to tag Obama with the socialist label, whenever he talks about minor tweaks in the tax code that would force the more fortunate to pay a bit more. The rates and level of progressivity he favors aren't anything we haven't seen before in this country. And these levels of higher taxation have, at times, coincided with periods of high economic growth. If it is coupled with spending cuts and helps bring down the deficit, I'm all for it.

Tom:

Are you really under the impression that everyone who is rich deserves it and earned it ethically and didn't do it at the expense of others? How about that $700 billion bail out that you and I paid for but went into the pockets of rich bankers who were just gambling for short term profits and cooking the books counting debt as profit?? How about all the subsidies oil and gas companies and Ag business receives that we all pay for??

Don't the Madoff's and Enron's of the world show you that many rich people do indeed get rich off the backs of others...Romney is no real exception to this...Not quite as bad 100% of the time obviously but many times he has eliminated other's jobs for his own profit...Which is legal of course but still...And sure, he has been responsible for creating some jobs too...mostly minimum wage jobs for people delivering Domino's pizza but I will grant that fact to him.

I am not mad about Romney (or anyone else) making money if it isn't at my expense. What I am mad about is that someone who makes more in 2 days than I do in a year, pays a lower tax rate than I do and a far lower percentage of social security taxes and he wants to LOWER his tax rate and raise mine! That is what we get upset about.

And my example does hold water because Romney still pays a lower percentage of taxes than I do..Sure his dollar amount is higher but it's not the same. It's like the Millionaire who gives $100 to charity...Who really gave more though , the Millionaire or the poor guy who gave $50 to charity and only make $20000 per year?

Tom:

So it shouldn't be regressive like it is now where I pay 25% and a billionaire like Romney pays 14%??

Or where I pay a higher percentage of Social Security taxes than billionaires like Romney??

Or that corporations like GE, Nicor, Duke Energy, Verizon, DuPont, Wells Fargo pay lower (actually 0) taxes than you and I??

If you agree that the middle class shouldn't pay more than the rich, you should probably reconsider who you vote for in November...Or do you think the people who got all that bailout money, who profited from the lack of regulation that they actually wrote, and made millions in the process should pay less than you and I??

Toad - you are paying the rate for income tax and he is paying capital gains tax rate. Taxing capital gains at the same rate as income would devastate the economy.

Barry - thank you for your thoughtful reply. When you state your case that way, you make me think. I like that.

The issue with calling Obama "socialist" has more to do with control of the economy, healthcare, big spending etc than tax rates. But let's let that alone for now, and focus on your other points.

You are correct about levels of progressivity being higher at times in the past. Remember, though, that in those days there were a lot more deductions, and one of the things that the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (which of course followed the Kemp-Roth Tax cut of 1981) did was to trade a reduction in top rates for the elimination of some deductions.

It is also certainly true that tax rates are not as directly tied to economic well-being as some imagine. President Clinton famously raised the top rate... and the economy still did quite well. But it's all very complicated, as the situation then was so different, so it also doesn't mean that increasing the top rates will not have the opposite effect today.

Regarding bringing down the deficit with a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, It may surprise you, but I did a post on this very subject titled Can the Deficit be Reduced by Spending Cuts Alone? Take a look.

As you'll see if you follow the link, from one standpoint the logical thing to do to get us out of our budgetary mess is to both cut spending across the board (even the military) and increase taxes. The reason though why conservatives resist the higher taxes is that we rightly fear that the spending cuts will be ephemeral but the tax hikes won't be. We've been down this path before, and every time we get the same result; the budget doesn't end up getting cut but the tax increases go into effect. And sure enough, as we sawjust last summer during budget negotiations, Obama is simply not serious about spending cuts

You say Obama is not serious about spending cuts. He says your side is not serious about revenue increases. And here we are, at this giant impasse. Not doing the right thing now, because of the distrust built up on both sides based on past failures, seems like giving up to me. As I said before, I think, on the whole, Americans' overall tax burden has been higher at times in our history, than it is today. So I'm not sure I buy your argument that spending cuts are ephemeral, but taxes have always been ever increasing. I agree that spending needs to be reigned in, but it should be matched with revenue increases and more elimination of loopholes.

"Taxing capital gains at the same rate as income would devastate the economy"

So you are saying Reagan destroyed the economy??

Capital gains taxes are 40% lower than what they were at the end of Reagan's term

Hi Barry

Fair points and thank you again for your comment. I'm guessing you didn't follow the link I left at the end of my last comment. The 2011 budget was $3.834 trillion, with revenue at $2.567 trillion, leaving a deficit of $1.56 trillion. The link went to a story about how during budget negotiations President Obama's final offer was a $2 billion cut. If he'd proposed $200 billion less in real cuts per year for the next 5 or so years I'd be impressed.