Exposing the lies about taxes

[P@triot]

The bottom use to make higher wages/benefits - and they use to pay a lot more taxes.

But starting in 1980 - in response to the stagflation of the late 70s - our politicians decided that the owners of Capital required lower labor costs in order to jumpstart investment and resurrect the economic growth of the postwar years. So we aggressively shrank unionization and liberalized trade so that our capitalists could take advantage of cheap foreign labor. After 30 years or lowering labor costs, the average wage at the bottom went from over 20$/hr to less than $10.

The GM Job model - with high wages, great benefits and a substantial tax burden - has been replaced by the Walmart job model where workers make less than 20K/yr and have little to zero benefits, and no surplus to tax. Meanwhile, pay at the top has exploded, with the owners of Capital realizing all the gains from cutting labor costs. So now you have the Walton's making 8 billion, while their workers barely make enough to pay rent.

In other words, if you're going to give your working class sub-poverty wages and make them compete with sweatshop-nations for jobs, than those very same workers are not going to be a revenue source. You can't squeeze water from a stone.

Meaning: if you make all the surplus, than you will pay most of the taxes.

Or so we thought, right? Reagan lowered taxes on the wealthy while at the same time passing labor and trade policies which vastly increased their share of the pie. This lead to our ever increasing structural deficits, which are used as a justification to further cut services to the working poor, thus making it even harder for them to pay taxes. But it gets worse. With the reduction of capital gains taxes to far less than the tax on income, many wealthy folks end up paying a lower rate than the non-wealthy.

Your tax chart is exactly what you'd expect to see if we lived in a world of such vast wealth disparity, protected by government policy, molded by lobbying pressure. Reagan's dream of cheap labor for corporations has produced a class of American serfs who can't survive without government assistance. And now you want these people to pay taxes with money they don't have so you can further lower the rates of folks who make all the money?

Why not give the worker more skin in the game? Maybe we should restore livable wages by preventing our capitalists form accessing sweatshop labor in freedom-hating nations. Why should Walmart's greatest partner be Communist China? The government is always intervening in the market for the capitalist, not only with patent protection but with a whole range of anti-competitive policies. For instance, we have regulations that prevent consumers from buying ultra cheap foreign drugs (which gives our pharmaceuticals a virtual domestic monopoly and allows them to rape consumers). Why not restore some balance and have government serve all Americans rather than just the corporations and wealthy individuals who fund their elections?

The wealthy have turned Washington into a subsidy and bailout machine. Washington is where business goes to purchase monopoly control over the domestic economy. Study the 2003 Republican Drug Bill to see who owns Washington, and who Washington serves.

The trend toward ever cheaper labor has brought great wealth to our capitalists, but it vastly undercuts the ability of our newly created class of wage serfs to become a revenue source.

You mean the same job model which caused GM to go bankrupt...

 

[P@triot]

No, social security is a service that the government provides for you that allows you not to have to fuck with putting money aside, and managing it, etc., your whole working life. And they do it in a highly efficient manner.

I've been getting SS for a short time and it pays my bills. My 2 pensions pay for my fun. I am very thankful the government took that money out of every paycheck I ever earned.

If it is a "service" why am I forced into it?

Also, if the federal government is sooooo good at managing money, why are they $17 trillion in debt?

Finally, how sad is it that you're so lazy you can't put money aside for yourself and need the government to do it for you. Look at that sentence which I highlighted above. That is absolutely amazing. You consider it great that the federal government unconstitutionally forced the American people into a program "that allows you not to have to fuck with putting money aside"? Because not spending every dime you make every month is too much effort? You'd rather "not have to fuck with that"? Un-fucking-believable.

Social Security loans money to the US government, it doesn't borrow it. Social Security is a creditor, not a debtor.

You are 'forced' into it because as a citizen in a democratic republic sometimes there are more votes for what you don't like than there are for what you like.

So you admit that the federal government has raided the account?

Furthermore, why are you changing the subject? I didn't ask if Social Security was a "creditor" or a "debtor". You claimed the government is just marvelous with saving money for the American people (paraphrasing here of course, not an exact quote). I asked if that were true, how is it that the federal government is a mind-boggling $17 trillion in debt?

Further still, the Constitution protects me from "mob mentality". Just because people vote for something doesn't take my rights away (unless those votes alter the U.S. Constitution during the legal amendment process - but that is a whole 'nother conversation). The federal government simply has no authority to force me into a savings program and no amount of votes by Congress changes that reality.

I find it scary as hell that people like you believe that as long as Congress votes it, it is ok, legal, or acceptable. What if Congress unanimously votes tomorrow to "hang *******"? Will you support that? Will you consider it legal? Will you consider it ok?

 

[Londoner]

When was the last time that a poor person became rich by taking the money of a rich person and giving it to government?

BTW...what programs and/or policies have the Democrats promoted or passed that helps people to get off of government assistance?

Ronald Reagan's family was dirt poor during the Great Depression. His father could not find work and it was crushing his family.

FDR didn't believe American families should be destroyed by a financial crisis which they had no roll in causing. So he created a work program centered primarily around building the advanced industrial infrastructure upon which All Americans depend, including profit makers. He paid for this program through progressive taxation and he gave Reagan's father and brother jobs, which helped lift the family out of poverty. Once the economy recovered and started producing jobs for everyone, Reagan's father transitioned to a private sector job. FDR invested in the Reagans - he help them avoid being crushed - and it paid off big time. FDR trusted American families; he didn't call them welfare queens to justify cutting them loose.

Same thing with the GI Bill or any number of subsidies that have kept college affordable for hard working poor and middle class families.

Same thing with the Hoover Dam, which enabled us to settle the Southwest and build thriving profit centers.

Same thing with the Satellite and aerospace technology that came our of the Cold War Pentagon and NASA, only to be seeded to the private sector so they could turn an immense profit.

Government has not only used progressive taxation to expand the opportunity of those born poor, it has also provided profit makers with useful subsidies, regulatory protections and vital technology. Do you know the military cost of protecting Exxon's oil fields in Iraq? Do you know the military costs of stabilizing the globe so profit makers can benefit from cheap labor and raw materials from very dangerous, unstable places? Do you know how much our government intervenes in the market to protect profit makers? Do you know the cost of running a patent system for the world's largest economy (-Do you know what the patent system is? Do you know the degree to which it constitutes the most concentrated form of nanny-state-intervention on behalf of wealthy investors? Does it bother you that FOX and your other news sources never talk about any of this stuff, leaving you with a very tired and repetitive list of cliches about evil government....)

Anyhoo, read Reagan's autobiography "Where's the Rest of Me?" In it he describes his family's debt to FDR, and how they were helped during their time of need. He also explains how this lead him to become a Democrat and campaign for Truman.


Reagan's family was lifted out of poverty by a government work program paid for by progressive taxation. He wasn't a welfare queen. He was a struggling American whose family needed some help to get back on their feet. I'm glad FDR invested in struggling American families like the Reagans. Have you ever seen the amount of money we spend on foreign aid? Do you know how much we are investing in Israel, Iraq or Afghanistan? God forbid that we invest in our own people.

(Psst: you've been lied to)

(And yes, I agree with you. Government can be wasteful, incompetent, corrupt and unreasonably confiscatory - and I'd much rather have a healthy market allocate resources and set prices, but your news sources have left you with crude talking points that don't seem to explain actual history. Our modern market economy has never been a simplistic bifurcation of capitalists on one side and evil government on the other. The economy has always been based on a partnership between Capital and the immense muscle of the American Government, especially in its capacity to provide infrastructure along with technological, financial and military support. This is why your noble John Galts spend trillions every year lobbying government for financial, legal and regulatory assistance. This is why several private sectors, including telecom, gobbled up the satellite technology developed by government with your tax dollars. And if you don't think high government spending and large deficits are compatible with strong economic growth and robust profits, than take another look at the Reagan years, specifically the spending, debt and deficits, historic for that time. And if you don't think high taxes and strong regulations are compatible with strong economic growth, take a look at the 50s and 60s. I'm not saying that deficits, high taxes, and government aid are necessary for economic growth, I'm merely pointing out that your economic models might need a little more nuance. You need to account for how effectively government has supported the supply and demand side, and how this has spurred economic growth - and then I'd be more than willing to discuss the waste, incompetence, thievery and constitutional debauchery of our near-sited leaders. I actually agree with a lot of what you say, but I think things are a lot more complicated than you realize... respectfully.)

 

[Againsheila]

Once again we see the parasite class is not paying their fair share while the upper class in this nation are burdened with paying damn near everything.

The bottom 50% earns 12% of the wealth but pays just 2% of the taxes. Meanwhile the top 1% earns 19% of the wealth but pays 37% of the taxes.

The top 10% own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. They should be paying 90% of the taxes.

 

[P@triot]

Once again we see the parasite class is not paying their fair share while the upper class in this nation are burdened with paying damn near everything.

The bottom 50% earns 12% of the wealth but pays just 2% of the taxes. Meanwhile the top 1% earns 19% of the wealth but pays 37% of the taxes.

The top 10% own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. They should be paying 90% of the taxes.

Clearly someone is incapable of reading a chart....

The top 10% earned 45% of the wealth in 2013 and yet they paid a staggering 71% of the taxes.

 

[Moonglow]

Once again we see the parasite class is not paying their fair share while the upper class in this nation are burdened with paying damn near everything.

The bottom 50% earns 12% of the wealth but pays just 2% of the taxes. Meanwhile the top 1% earns 19% of the wealth but pays 37% of the taxes.

The top 10% own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. They should be paying 90% of the taxes.

Clearly someone is incapable of reading a chart....

The top 10% earned 45% of the wealth in 2013 and yet they paid a staggering 71% of the taxes.

What is your effective tax rate?

 

[P@triot]

When was the last time that a poor person became rich by taking the money of a rich person and giving it to government?

BTW...what programs and/or policies have the Democrats promoted or passed that helps people to get off of government assistance?

Ronald Reagan's family was dirt poor during the Great Depression. His father could not find work and it was crushing his family.

And what should have happened is that the extended Reagan family, friends of the Reagan's, their church, and local charities should have pitched in to prevent the family from being "crushed".

FDR didn't believe American families should be destroyed by a financial crisis which they had no roll in causing.

Nobody cares what FDR thought. He was a progressive lunatic who pissed all over the Constitution and his illegal actions not only created the Great Depression, it prolonged it. In short, along with Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama, he makes up 1/3 of the three worst presidents in U.S. history.

But don't take my word for it, listen to the words of two UCLA economists:
FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate

Don't believe in liberal "scholars"? Fine, don't take their word for it either. Listen to the words of Henry Morgenthau Jr. — Secretary of the Treasury to President Franklin D. Roosevelt — and key architect of FDR’s New Deal:
'We're Spending More Than Ever and It Doesn't Work' - Henry Morgenthau Jr.

So he created a work program centered primarily around building the advanced industrial infrastructure upon which All Americans depend, including profit makers.

Another false narrative and crude liberal talking point. Not a single U.S. job in the private sector has ever depended on "industrial infrastructure".

Maybe next time you could display critical thinking by providing a comparative analysis of of jobs dependent on "industrial infrastructure" vs. jobs not dependent on "industrial infrastructure"?

On a side note, how comical that liberals demand "infrastructure for private industry" while crying about "corporate welfare". They demand government do for business at the same time they demand government stop doing for business

He paid for this program through progressive taxation

Which, as we already established above with links to studies (as opposed to your parroted talking points), created and then prolonged the Great Depression.

and he gave Reagan's father and brother jobs, which helped lift the family out of poverty. Once the economy recovered and started producing jobs for everyone, Reagan's father transitioned to a private sector job.

It is not the federal governments responsibility to provide jobs. Please allow me to direct you to the U.S. Constitution which outlines the rolls and responsibilities of the federal government.

FDR invested in the Reagans - he help them avoid being crushed - and it paid off big time. FDR trusted American families; he didn't call them welfare queens to justify cutting them loose.

It is not the federal governments responsibility to "invest". Please allow me to direct you to the U.S. Constitution which outlines the rolls and responsibilities of the federal government.

By the way, the "investment" that you seem to love (when it is with someone else's money of course and not your own), has lead to the United States federal government being $17 trillion in debt.

Same thing with the GI Bill or any number of subsidies that have kept college affordable for hard working poor and middle class families.

It is not the federal governments responsibility to "keep college affordable". Please allow me to direct you to the U.S. Constitution which outlines the rolls and responsibilities of the federal government.

Same thing with the Satellite and aerospace technology that came our of the Cold War Pentagon and NASA, only to be seeded to the private sector so they could turn an immense profit.

So now you're advocating for "corporate welfare"?

Government has not only used progressive taxation to expand the opportunity of those born poor, it has also provided profit makers with useful subsidies, regulatory protections and vital technology.

It is not the federal governments responsibility to "expand the opportunity of those born poor", or provide "subsidies", or provide "vital technology". Please allow me to direct you to the U.S. Constitution which outlines the rolls and responsibilities of the federal government.

Do you know the military cost of protecting Exxon's oil fields in Iraq?

Except that Exxon does not, nor has it ever, had an oil field in Iraq. Time to stop getting your information from Hollywood, junior.

Do you know the military costs of stabilizing the globe so profit makers can benefit from cheap labor and raw materials from very dangerous, unstable places?

So now you're advocating for "corporate welfare"?

Do you know how much our government intervenes in the market to protect profit makers? Do you know the cost of running a patent system for the world's largest economy

Finally! Protecting intellectual property actually is one of the responsibilities of the federal government. And after sifting through your parroted liberal talking points and eliminating it, the actual cost is nothing. We could take $1 from every American to run the patent office and still have change left over.

I'm glad FDR invested in struggling American families like the Reagans.

Boy, talk about a "crude talking point"

Have you ever seen the amount of money we spend on foreign aid? Do you know how much we are investing in Israel, Iraq or Afghanistan?

I agree with you 100% here. The federal government has no business spending money on foreign aid. We need to permanently end that b.s.

(And yes, I agree with you. Government can be wasteful, incompetent, corrupt and unreasonably confiscatory - and I'd much rather have a healthy market allocate resources and set prices, but your news sources have left you with crude talking points that don't seem to explain actual history.)

Says the parrot who repeats liberal talking points for a cracker. For the amusement of USMB readers, I have highlighted in red above all the time you used the word "investment" with regards to government. It illustrates what a cheap parrot you are.

In short, your entire diatribe was intellectually lazy. You offered no facts, no links, no evidence. Just the same old tired liberal talking points.

 

[Moonglow]

The Great Depression started during the Hoover presidency, there is no way that FDR started the Great Depression...
And again your effective tax rate for being unemployed is????

 

[NYcarbineer]

Would you care to tell us why that matters?

It matters because you're probably not in the top ten percent and therefore you probably are not paying disproportionately, relatively, high taxes.

So just to be clear [MENTION=18701]NYcarbineer[/MENTION], you are now admitting that the wealthy in this country are paying (and I quote) "disproportionately, relatively high taxes"? Do I have this right?

Did you take math in school?

 

[NYcarbineer]

Once again we see the parasite class is not paying their fair share while the upper class in this nation are burdened with paying damn near everything.

The bottom 50% earns 12% of the wealth but pays just 2% of the taxes. Meanwhile the top 1% earns 19% of the wealth but pays 37% of the taxes.

The top 10% own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. They should be paying 90% of the taxes.

Clearly someone is incapable of reading a chart....

The top 10% earned 45% of the wealth in 2013 and yet they paid a staggering 71% of the taxes.

Most of the disproportion is in the top 1%.

btw, the social insurance (payroll) effective tax rate for the top 1% is about 2.5%.

For the lowest quintile, it's 8.3%

Historical Average Federal Tax Rates for All Households

 

[NYcarbineer]

Once again we see the parasite class is not paying their fair share while the upper class in this nation are burdened with paying damn near everything.

The bottom 50% earns 12% of the wealth but pays just 2% of the taxes. Meanwhile the top 1% earns 19% of the wealth but pays 37% of the taxes.

The top 10% own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. They should be paying 90% of the taxes.

Clearly someone is incapable of reading a chart....

The top 10% earned 45% of the wealth in 2013 and yet they paid a staggering 71% of the taxes.

That is number that should trouble people. 1/10th of America's income earners take in almost half of the total income?

And you people think raising the minimum wage will bring on the end of the world. Jesus.

 

[AntiParty]

Once again we see the parasite class is not paying their fair share while the upper class in this nation are burdened with paying damn near everything.

The bottom 50% earns 12% of the wealth but pays just 2% of the taxes. Meanwhile the top 1% earns 19% of the wealth but pays 37% of the taxes.

That's amazing considering America's top Corporations pay little if no taxation. Corporations were deemed "people" correct? Do you suppose those Corporations are considered as "people" on your chart?

I wish I had a -3.8% tax rate like Verison. 10 Big Companies That Pay No Taxes (and Their Favorite Politicians) | Mother Jones

Once again we see the parasite class is not paying their fair share

 

[Politico]

Social Security loans money to the US government, it doesn't borrow it. Social Security is a creditor, not a debtor..

Social Security is part of the government, so these transactions you are referring to are purely imaginary.

You are 'forced' into it because as a citizen in a democratic republic sometimes there are more votes for what you don't like than there are for what you like.

That's called "the tyranny of the majority" or "mob rule" for short. That's the main problem with democracy.

The Social Security program is completely separate from the federal budget.

Pick up a book. The money was absorbed into the general fund decades ago.

 

[AntiParty]

The top 10% own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. They should be paying 90% of the taxes.

Clearly someone is incapable of reading a chart....

The top 10% earned 45% of the wealth in 2013 and yet they paid a staggering 71% of the taxes.

That is number that should trouble people. 1/10th of America's income earners take in almost half of the total income?

And you people think raising the minimum wage will bring on the end of the world. Jesus.

I don't agree with raising the minimum wage. But I agree with you on your economics. 98% of the NEW income since 1998 has went to the 1%, not the workers. And the 1% have raised the prices on the goods.

 

[AntiParty]

Social Security is part of the government, so these transactions you are referring to are purely imaginary.



That's called "the tyranny of the majority" or "mob rule" for short. That's the main problem with democracy.

The Social Security program is completely separate from the federal budget.

Pick up a book. The money was absorbed into the general fund decades ago.

LOL! They don't do books man. I've been on MANY forums and have noted that they only do titles. Hell, look at, The Patriot Act", they like it. Look at "Anti-Outsoucing Bill" they hate it. On title alone they are both terribly miss-repestented and it was on purpose.

 

[Politico]

Pick up a book. The money was absorbed into the general fund decades ago.

 

[edthecynic]

Once again we see the parasite class is not paying their fair share while the upper class in this nation are burdened with paying damn near everything.

The bottom 50% earns 12% of the wealth but pays just 2% of the taxes. Meanwhile the top 1% earns 19% of the wealth but pays 37% of the taxes.

The bottom 40% have .2% of the wealth, and the bottom 50% have 2.5% of the wealth, not 12% and the top 1% have 38% of the wealth not 22%. You are confusing wealth with wages.

The wealthy do not work for the common wage! Your chart is the distribution of wages to income taxes, it does not include ALL income or ALL federal taxes. It is therefore dishonest, but what else would you expect from Heritage! So when the Right says the top 10% of "earners" they are talking about "WAGE earners" like doctors, lawyers, movie stars and athletes, and not Capital Gains Tycoons like Buffett or Romney. Wage earners are paupers compared to Capital Gains Tycoons.

There is no denying that wage earners pay the bulk of the taxes and there is also no denying that wealthy Capital Gains Tycoons pay little or nothing in taxes and it is the Capital Gains Tycoons who the Left say should pay their fair share in taxes, not the already taxed to the hilt wage earners. The Right likes to conflate the two as you did in your OP.

August 7, 2007
CALLER: And, you know, and the way our tax system works, we have an overly complex system, which in and of itself is a problem, but the way our tax system works and the way the tax laws are written, it's based on a few kind of like hinge numbers like adjusted gross income and taxable income, and while the soak the rich -- or however you choose to describe it -- really doesn't come down that way. It really comes down to much lower income levels.

RUSH: It does, exactly, and here's the dirty little secret if you ever to pull it off. It's hard. This is why most people don't understand the tax-the-rich business. You've got to structure your life so you have no "earned" income. I'm out of time. I'll explain that. There's a category called earned income versus other kinds of income. Earned income is what the income tax rate is on. That's how "the rich" do it. They don't have "earned" income.
END TRANSCRIPT

The Truth About Taxes
August 6, 2007
RUSH: I've told you before: the income tax is designed to keep people like his [Buffett's] secretary from becoming wealthy! There is no "wealth" tax. So this is a big misnomer. ...
But there's no tax on wealth. There is a tax on income, and the tax on income is designed to keep everybody who is not wealthy from getting there.
I'm talking about genuine wealth, not the way Democrats define "rich."

 

[JoeB131]

[

The GM Job model - with high wages, great benefits and a substantial tax burden - has been replaced by the Walmart job model where workers make less than 20K/yr and have little to zero benefits, and no surplus to tax. Meanwhile, pay at the top has exploded, with the owners of Capital realizing all the gains from cutting labor costs. So now you have the Walton's making 8 billion, while their workers barely make enough to pay rent.

You mean the same job model which caused GM to go bankrupt...

Now, your argument would make sense if GM lost to Walmart.

It didn't.

It lost to Toyota and Volkswagen.

Companies in foriegn countries where they have high unionization, high taxes on the rich, socialized medicine and a pretty generous liberal welfare state.

Companies where the Unions have the ability to vote out the board of directors.

Companies where the CEO's do not make 400 times what a line worker makes.

 

[P@triot]

It matters because you're probably not in the top ten percent and therefore you probably are not paying disproportionately, relatively, high taxes.

So just to be clear [MENTION=18701]NYcarbineer[/MENTION], you are now admitting that the wealthy in this country are paying (and I quote) "disproportionately, relatively high taxes"? Do I have this right?

Did you take math in school?

You liberals get more and more bizarre by the day. I quoted you, asked you to verify if I was understanding you correctly, and your response is to ask about math...

This was a very simple question. Are you now admitting that the wealthy in this country are paying (and I quote) "disproportionately, relatively high taxes"? Yes or no?

 

[P@triot]

The top 10% own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. They should be paying 90% of the taxes.

Clearly someone is incapable of reading a chart....

The top 10% earned 45% of the wealth in 2013 and yet they paid a staggering 71% of the taxes.

That is number that should trouble people. 1/10th of America's income earners take in almost half of the total income?

And you people think raising the minimum wage will bring on the end of the world. Jesus.

It does trouble me - because it indicates that the parasite class in this country is growing. It's sad that this nation has such an effort disparity problem. The question is, why doesn't that bother you? Why do you want 10% of this country contributing to society and 90% of this country being a burden to society?

And by the way, research has proven that raising the minimum wage will cost millions of jobs. In spite of your immature idealism, CEO's are not taking pay cuts so that people doing remedial tasks can make six-figures a year. They will simply eliminate jobs and raise the prices of their goods and services to cover the cost of the regulation. They will not eat the cost and if you Dumbocrats can't figure that out, then you are beyond helping. This is why Dumbocrats have had to raise minimum wage a staggering 20x's during my lifetime - because they are just too simple to figure out that when minimum wage goes up, so does the cost of good and services to cover those wages. And then the minimum wage worker is no further ahead.