The coming civil war in the US

[Nik]

Yes, I am referring to the Income tax. The federal government funds exactly nothing from a sales tax nor do they collect one.

What percentage of the population do you think are net payers of income tax Nik?

So federal taxes are the only taxes that count now? Interesting theory that.

The Tax Foundation - Number of Americans Outside the Income Tax System Continues to Grow

That link says 32.4%. Oh, by the way, funny you leave out Payroll taxes which are generally around 15%. Why would that be?

The link says the number is 38%. The trend is up. My understanding is the current number is 41%, I'll try to find support for that number. Fact Check

Ah, well, much different than 50%.

I was actually rounding. My understanding is that the number is in the 40s and climbing.

Rounding to, what? The nearest 25% ? The neareest 50%?

I see no support for thinking that Obama will increase the tax burden on the "poorest" Americans. In fact, he is promising to give a tax cut to those people. If we've already passed Obama's tax cut, then we would be in the 40s.

Do you know WHY that number is climbing Tech?

Payroll taxes are only 15% if you are paying both the employer and employee portions of taxes. Further, payroll taxes are social security and medicare, you have to pay it to get it on the other end. What are you suggesting? That it be a give away program?

For the very poor? Yes. I do suggest that. Besides that, are you implying that social security and medicare only go to social security and medicare? Or that the government never takes that money to use for other things?

 

[Tech_Esq]

I don't care much for the OP, but we are setting ourselves up for a train wreck of some sort. How exactly it will play out is anyone's guess. But, we made it so half the people don't pay taxes. Ok, well those people will probably be on one side.

We've set up a system where ever more taxes will be needed and we are shoveling more and more things onto that pile "Health care," "cap and tax," increasing the generosity of pre-existing programs, creating more agencies etc. This will increase the tax burden on the half of the people that actually pay taxes.

At some point, it may no longer make sense for a certain portion of the taxed to do work in the US. Whatever that work maybe. Some of them can be expected to vote with their feet. Some won't be able to. The people most likely to leave will be those wealthy enough to leave and therefore probably the ones paying the most in taxes. This will put increasing pressure on those that don't leave. At some point, the desire to continue a system where there a very limited rewards and very high penalties will cease to be attractive for most or maybe a plurality of those paying taxes. That is your powder keg.

The question is whether the air gets let out before it gets critical. Or, whether politicians find themselves in a politically untenable situation and don't have the guts to deflate the balloon before it explodes. Regardless of the answer, I view this as a problem with a 10 - 30 year event horizon unless Obama invents even more reasons to tax folks. If the US is placed in an economically untenable situation first, all bets are off.

If all the tax loopholes were eliminated that only benefited the wealthy, there would be no need to raise anyone's taxes.

I'm not trying to justify anything. I'm just providing an analysis of the situation as I see it. As I said, there may be many ways for nothing much to happen, but it will require political will be politicians. This as been in severely short supply over the last 40 years.

Closing tax "loopholes" is one potential exercise of political will that may be open to politicians for solving the problem.

The last time I saw Congress do that was when they passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Then the Iron Law of unintended consequences took over. Congress closed the tax loophole for owners rental property. So a lot of low end landlords (slum lords) either went condo, destroyed their low end apartments or sold their property. Result: floods of homeless poor people in the streets in the late 1980s....

So, watch which ones you close, you never know the result you get.

 

[Tech_Esq]

So federal taxes are the only taxes that count now? Interesting theory that.

The Tax Foundation - Number of Americans Outside the Income Tax System Continues to Grow

That link says 32.4%. Oh, by the way, funny you leave out Payroll taxes which are generally around 15%. Why would that be?

The link says the number is 38%. The trend is up. My understanding is the current number is 41%, I'll try to find support for that number. Fact Check

Ah, well, much different than 50%.



Rounding to, what? The nearest 25% ? The neareest 50%?

I see no support for thinking that Obama will increase the tax burden on the "poorest" Americans. In fact, he is promising to give a tax cut to those people. If we've already passed Obama's tax cut, then we would be in the 40s.

Do you know WHY that number is climbing Tech?

Payroll taxes are only 15% if you are paying both the employer and employee portions of taxes. Further, payroll taxes are social security and medicare, you have to pay it to get it on the other end. What are you suggesting? That it be a give away program?

For the very poor? Yes. I do suggest that. Besides that, are you implying that social security and medicare only go to social security and medicare? Or that the government never takes that money to use for other things?

What does any of that have to do with the point of my post?

At the end you propose to add even more fuel to the fire. Way to get the point.

 

[Tech_Esq]

Closer than I said:

An astonishing 43.4 percent of Americans now pay zero or negative federal income taxes. The number of single or jointly-filing "taxpayers" - the word must be applied sparingly - who pay no taxes or receive government handouts has reached 65.6 million, out of a total of 151 million.

Those numbers come from an analysis published yesterday by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. Neither is a low-tax or conservative advocacy group;

The Income Tax System is Broken

 

[Nik]

The link says the number is 38%. The trend is up. My understanding is the current number is 41%, I'll try to find support for that number. Fact Check

Ah, well, much different than 50%.



Rounding to, what? The nearest 25% ? The neareest 50%?




Do you know WHY that number is climbing Tech?

Payroll taxes are only 15% if you are paying both the employer and employee portions of taxes. Further, payroll taxes are social security and medicare, you have to pay it to get it on the other end. What are you suggesting? That it be a give away program?

For the very poor? Yes. I do suggest that. Besides that, are you implying that social security and medicare only go to social security and medicare? Or that the government never takes that money to use for other things?

What does any of that have to do with the point of my post?

At the end you propose to add even more fuel to the fire. Way to get the point.

Your point seems to have been a bullshit excuse to blame the poor for Americas tax woes.

 

[Tech_Esq]

Ah, well, much different than 50%.



Rounding to, what? The nearest 25% ? The neareest 50%?




Do you know WHY that number is climbing Tech?



For the very poor? Yes. I do suggest that. Besides that, are you implying that social security and medicare only go to social security and medicare? Or that the government never takes that money to use for other things?

What does any of that have to do with the point of my post?

At the end you propose to add even more fuel to the fire. Way to get the point.

Your point seems to have been a bullshit excuse to blame the poor for Americas tax woes.

It has nothing to do with that. You better check your reading comprehension.

 

[Nik]

Closer than I said:

An astonishing 43.4 percent of Americans now pay zero or negative federal income taxes. The number of single or jointly-filing "taxpayers" - the word must be applied sparingly - who pay no taxes or receive government handouts has reached 65.6 million, out of a total of 151 million.

Those numbers come from an analysis published yesterday by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. Neither is a low-tax or conservative advocacy group;

The Income Tax System is Broken

Or maybe its broken because we've lowered the top income tax rate, eh?

 

[Nik]

What does any of that have to do with the point of my post?

At the end you propose to add even more fuel to the fire. Way to get the point.

Your point seems to have been a bullshit excuse to blame the poor for Americas tax woes.

It has nothing to do with that. You better check your reading comprehension.

Oh? That what exactly was your point?

 

[rhodescholar]

Taxpayers who aren't so lucky naturally are chaffing under the yoke of increaing taxes.

Certainly local and state governments seem to be reponding to the current economic crises by freezing hiring though.

A great example is upstate NY, where there has been a massive loss of school-age children, as people continue to flee NY state, especially upstate, coupled with the hiring of 6,000 teachers for upstate schools.

So the state is hiring more staff, er, buying more votes, to teach fewer children.

Also, many of the worst counties in the US with respect to real estate taxes as a share of home value are in upstate NY - no wonder people are burning rubber to get the hell out of there. There's no jobs, and they face massive taxes - plus tax increases as the hiring shows no let up. Yeah, that's good government at its best.

 

[rhodescholar]

I don't mean to rain on your parade or anything, but us public servants who actually DO work not only contribute to our pensions but <gasp> allow theft of our wages too. That would mean that we're paying ourselves to work.... Dayum....

And not to rain on yours, but I see you are in NJ...did you even read the WSJ article I provided?

Your state is bankrupt, and public union workers are a driving forced behind it.

 

[rhodescholar]

And many of the CEOs that engineered the present debacle are getting pensions in the seven figure range.

STOP. RIGHT. THERE.

You want to prosecute them for malfeasance, as in breaking financial services regulations, fine, but these are PRIVATE companies, and my taxes are NOT supporting their pensions. I dislike the firm, fuck them, I can shop elsewhere for their product/service. Not so with public workers - municipalities are MONOPOLISTS, so if I do not like their service, I am stuck with them.

As for your civil war, take your pop gun and stick it up your ass. I am truly getting tired of this idiotic talk. You Conservatives lost an election. That is what happens when you show yourselves to be really incompetant. Grow up and stop talking about harming your fellow Americans just because they don't want to be incompetantly governed by feckless people.

What does this have to do with anything, imbecile? This is not a process started under a democratic president, and I never claimed it was, you tool.

 

[Tech_Esq]

Your point seems to have been a bullshit excuse to blame the poor for Americas tax woes.

It has nothing to do with that. You better check your reading comprehension.

Oh? That what exactly was your point?

The point was that when you create a system where a very significant percentage of the population are not paying into the system, they will tend to create greater and greater demands on the government to provide ever expanding services. Why shouldn't they? No skin off their nose.

On the other hand, those that pay must be kept in the game or there is no more golden eggs to pay for those ever expanding services.

My argument is that there will come a point where it will be nearly impossible to keep those providing the golden eggs "in the game." At that point, if nothing else is done, something may happen. Until then, I don't see a "civil war" happening because of economic disparity. Now, if Obama manages to crash the economy and something unforeseen happens, that's something else altogether.

 

[necritan]

Pensions are going to be the catalyst for the coming right wing revolt?

Yeah, right.

We all know why you guys are going bonkers.

Anyone that takes up arms against their nation, deserves what they get:

To be crushed by the federal Army.

Again.

Im sure that's what the Britains throught... They sure showed those Americans didnt they?

Prior to the invention of the machine gun, explosives as standard issue, mechanized Infantry, CAS, and Armor, the average citizen could expect to match the firepower of the average federal soldier.

Times have changed a bit. Something the neo-secessionists always seem to omit from their MDMP.

Any modern rebellion unit would quickly be crushed. People are ill advised to take up arms against their nation.

You are soooooo wrong. Our 200,000,000 guns vs ?????

You dont just carpet bomb your own people....not to mention the military would split. Who's side would the Military take??? The conservative right who has always supported them or the liberal left who condemns them yet loves to use them???

If a civil war broke out......yall are fucked....trust me.

 

[rhodescholar]

And just who the fuck do you think YOU are???

Didn't you read my file, I am the person tapping your phone and reading your emails, you silly little commie, you

 

[Nik]

And many of the CEOs that engineered the present debacle are getting pensions in the seven figure range.

STOP. RIGHT. THERE.

You want to prosecute them for malfeasance, as in breaking financial services regulations, fine, but these are PRIVATE companies, and my taxes are NOT supporting their pensions. I dislike the firm, fuck them, I can shop elsewhere for their product/service. Not so with public workers - municipalities are MONOPOLISTS, so if I do not like their service, I am stuck with them.

As for your civil war, take your pop gun and stick it up your ass. I am truly getting tired of this idiotic talk. You Conservatives lost an election. That is what happens when you show yourselves to be really incompetant. Grow up and stop talking about harming your fellow Americans just because they don't want to be incompetantly governed by feckless people.

What does this have to do with anything, imbecile? This is not a process started under a democratic president, and I never claimed it was, you tool.

So let me get this straight.

You expect government to be as efficient as private companies, but you want them to pay their workers a fraction of the cost. Is this correct?

 

[Nik]

It has nothing to do with that. You better check your reading comprehension.

Oh? That what exactly was your point?

The point was that when you create a system where a very significant percentage of the population are not paying into the system, they will tend to create greater and greater demands on the government to provide ever expanding services. Why shouldn't they? No skin off their nose.

Except they DO pay into the system, in various ways. Federal income tax isn't the only way to pay into the "system".

Despite that, many of the people who don't pay federal income tax don't expect that they will never pay federal income tax.

On the other hand, those that pay must be kept in the game or there is no more golden eggs to pay for those ever expanding services.

My argument is that there will come a point where it will be nearly impossible to keep those providing the golden eggs "in the game." At that point, if nothing else is done, something may happen. Until then, I don't see a "civil war" happening because of economic disparity. Now, if Obama manages to crash the economy and something unforeseen happens, that's something else altogether.

Nearly impossible? Our max tax rate is what...40% or so nowadays? Why weren't all the "golden eggs" out of the game in the 50's when the tax rate was much higher? Or the 60's or the 70's?

 

[MaggieMae]

Im sure that's what the Britains throught... They sure showed those Americans didnt they?

Prior to the invention of the machine gun, explosives as standard issue, mechanized Infantry, CAS, and Armor, the average citizen could expect to match the firepower of the average federal soldier.

Times have changed a bit. Something the neo-secessionists always seem to omit from their MDMP.

Any modern rebellion unit would quickly be crushed. People are ill advised to take up arms against their nation.

You are soooooo wrong. Our 200,000,000 guns vs ?????

You dont just carpet bomb your own people....not to mention the military would split. Who's side would the Military take??? The conservative right who has always supported them or the liberal left who condemns them yet loves to use them???

If a civil war broke out......yall are fucked....trust me.

Don't think much of the pledge to our nation that every person joining the military takes, do you... If they sided with subversives, they would be traitors. Country-first, not the goddamned south again. Trust me.

 

[rhodescholar]

Or maybe its broken because we've lowered the top income tax rate, eh?

"Lowered" the rate?

Who on fucking earth would be motivated to work at a 70+ percent income tax level?

And the 50% figure of people not paying fed inc taxes is accurate when you take into account other factors, such as tax credits and other subsidies the bottom half receive.

 

[rhodescholar]

So let me get this straight. You expect government to be as efficient as private companies, but you want them to pay their workers a fraction of the cost. Is this correct?

Working for the gov't used to require certain trade-offs, such as a less stressful work environment, lighter workload, with a reduced chance of being laid off, for lower pay. Now public workers are enjoying the former, and no longer suffering under the latter.

Gov't by definition, since it is not driven by profit, will never be as efficient as the private sector. Further, we should not wish to exacerbate the government's inefficiency by allowing unions to enter the public workforce, which reduces governmental administrator's flexibility to perform a monopolistic, legally required function.

 

[necritan]

Prior to the invention of the machine gun, explosives as standard issue, mechanized Infantry, CAS, and Armor, the average citizen could expect to match the firepower of the average federal soldier.

Times have changed a bit. Something the neo-secessionists always seem to omit from their MDMP.

Any modern rebellion unit would quickly be crushed. People are ill advised to take up arms against their nation.

You are soooooo wrong. Our 200,000,000 guns vs ?????

You dont just carpet bomb your own people....not to mention the military would split. Who's side would the Military take??? The conservative right who has always supported them or the liberal left who condemns them yet loves to use them???

If a civil war broke out......yall are fucked....trust me.

Don't think much of the pledge to our nation that every person joining the military takes, do you... If they sided with subversives, they would be traitors. Country-first, not the goddamned south again. Trust me.

Depends on what side you believe to be subversive. I know the Military isnt at all designed to fight a domestic battle.....