wow, you've been brainwashed. how's that "soon to have" mentality working out for you? How much in capital gains tax did you pay last year? Let me guess...none.

you are the poster child for voting against your own interests.

nice strawman. I don't see a lot of people sitting around, I see people trying to change things. and *gasp* making it part of the national conversation is part of that.

the right loves to rail against the European mentality of people being born into wealth, but that's exactly what we are creating. Romney - born into wealth. The Bush family - born into wealth. maybe a long time ago, someone in their family did work hard to get where they are, or in all likelyhood, they got lucky, they were in the right place, right time. From then on, it's just a game of maintaining that wealth. which buys you politicians to help you keep that wealth.

You probably can't hear me, probably still planning out what you're going to do with your lottery winnings.

Income taxes started in the 1860s. Not sure about capital gains. I don't buy your point that poor immigrants got wealthier when there were no taxes. Wealthy individuals have most often gotten rich on the labor of poorer people (think slavery).
Diverting from productive to unproductive is a matter of opinion on what is productive. I think we waste so much money on the military, but politicians are afraid to say that. Only a small percent is spent on welfare and I would argue that does improve our chances in the future.
Not sure if you've seen this... http://videosift.com/video/Understanding-the-National-Debt-and-Budget-Deficit I am concerned about the debt, but I also believe it's being used to score political points and is part of the fear agenda.
It's class envy (or wealth redistribution) when you talk about raising taxes on the rich, but what was it called when the tax rates were decreased and the loopholes were created.
>> ^BansheeX:

>> ^Fairbs:
Something most Republicans can't grasp is our country is better off when the rich are taxed more. 40 years ago, taxes on capital gains were 80%, but now Romney feels he's taxed too much at 15.

And 100 years ago the income tax and capital gains tax was 0... for everyone. And the rate of growth during that period of time has never been equaled since. So here we have a clear point in history where rich people were not being taxed at all and poor immigrants got much wealthier in short order.
The main difference then was that government was much smaller. It didn't divert resources from productive places to unproductive places. It wasn't able to run huge deficits because of the gold standard, so the interest on the national debt never became a burden...And when the government borrows from other countries, 99% of it is spent on welfare and warfare rather than something that increases future returns to make the debt repayable.
...The point is, using class envy is a political game that needs to be ignored...

>> ^BansheeX:

And 100 years ago the income tax and capital gains tax was 0... for everyone. And the rate of growth during that period of time has never been equaled since. So here we have a clear point in history where rich people were not being taxed at all and poor immigrants got much wealthier in short order.



So you're saying that the glorious late-robber-barons era during which there was abject poverty for the masses, including things like child labor, and people had a life expectancy of ~35 years, as "much wealthier" than the golden era of the 50s and 60s?

>> ^Fairbs:

Something most Republicans can't grasp is our country is better off when the rich are taxed more. 40 years ago, taxes on capital gains were 80%, but now Romney feels he's taxed too much at 15.


And 100 years ago the income tax and capital gains tax was 0... for everyone. And the rate of growth during that period of time has never been equaled since. So here we have a clear point in history where rich people were not being taxed at all and poor immigrants got much wealthier in short order.

The main difference then was that government was much smaller. It didn't divert resources from productive places to unproductive places. It wasn't able to run huge deficits because of the gold standard, so the interest on the national debt never became a burden. Today, the national debt is so large and short term that interest rates can't go up without causing unpayable interest. Without healthy interest rates, there are no savings. Without savings, there is no real investment to upgrade those shovels to bulldozers. And when the government borrows from other countries, 99% of it is spent on welfare and warfare rather than something that increases future returns to make the debt repayable.

That being said, Romney isn't the solution. This guy is just like GWB, will say anything to get into office. The point is, using class envy is a political game that needs to be ignored. Raising taxes on anyone doesn't come close to stopping the coming currency collapse. You guys are doing the economic equivalent of playing with your dicks. And it's going to become painfully obvious in the next 10 years regardless of which one of these clowns you elect.

That's not what progressive means, in this context. A progressive tax system is one where you pay a (progressively) higher rate when you have more income. What you have is a regressive tax system.

Do you happen to know what percentage of U.S. companies actually pay tax at the stated high rate? How does that compare to other countries? I know that quite a few of your companies weasel their way out of paying any tax at all, but I don't know how many overall manage this.

The ancient Roman empire also had social welfare, of a sort, increased after 122 B.C. See http://www.roman-empire.net/society/society.html for an overview. Then, as now, it was expensive to run.

The comparison is actually quite fair, except that in ancient Rome it was expected that wealthy citizens would give back to society and the idea of unbounded avarice as a virtue would have been quite foreign to them... so in a sense it's back to front.
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Not quite sure how comparing that to the US economy makes any sense. The US has the highest corporate tax rate on Planet Earth now. We have very high capital gains taxes (compared to global averages). Our income tax is so "Progressive" right now that the bottom 50% of taxpayers only pay 5% of the taxes. Over 75% of the Federal Government's 1.6 trillion dollar budget is dedicated to social programs for the poor.
Only way comparing it to the vid makes sense if if you contextualize it by stating that it is the GOVERNMENT that is deciding the screw the poor by the process of its own incredible incompetence, malfeasence, and mismanagement. Since only about 20 cents on the dollar comes 'out' of government versus what goes in, then yes - the U.S. Federal Government is entirely oriented around screwing the poor.
But of course, that's not what Prog-Lib-Dytes mean. To a leftist, the video means "tax breaks for the rich" ... (insert liberal talking point) et al.

Not quite sure how comparing that to the US economy makes any sense. The US has the highest corporate tax rate on Planet Earth now. We have very high capital gains taxes (compared to global averages). Our income tax is so "Progressive" right now that the bottom 50% of taxpayers only pay 5% of the taxes. Over 75% of the Federal Government's 1.6 trillion dollar budget is dedicated to social programs for the poor.

Only way comparing it to the vid makes sense if if you contextualize it by stating that it is the GOVERNMENT that is deciding the screw the poor by the process of its own incredible incompetence, malfeasence, and mismanagement. Since only about 20 cents on the dollar comes 'out' of government versus what goes in, then yes - the U.S. Federal Government is entirely oriented around screwing the poor.

But of course, that's not what Prog-Lib-Dytes mean. To a leftist, the video means "tax breaks for the rich" ... (insert liberal talking point) et al.

@NetRunner @dystopianfuturetoday

I'm looking for debate too, but I'm not going to find it if I argue the progressive angle. I'll be Lucifer's lawyer on this one.


A few things. First, I'm with those of you who doubt the truth of Schiff's statement that he's paying 50% of his income in taxes. I demand to see his tax return!

I'm potentially sympathetic to Schiff here. As we all know income taxes, and even capital gains taxes aren't the only taxes that exist. Schiff is a business owner. I suspect his issue is with the "double taxing" of profits. His business makes a profit which is then taxed. That taxation thus reduces the value of his business. Further, the remaining profits are taxed again (in the form of capital gains) when he decides to liquidate his stake in the company. So if you basically make your money by creating value in businesses in exchange for an ownership stake, that value is taxed twice before you even see it. Now of course this comes from someone that frequently makes disingenuous claims like the majority of Americans "don't pay taxes," considering the substantial share of their income they pay in consumption taxes; but his point stands on its own. I wish we had a more streamlined tax system that did away with loopholes as well as double taxation of value creation (like a VAT).


Secondly, even if it were 50%, and it went up to 65%, in what universe is it ever in Schiff's interest to stop making money? In fact, wouldn't it be an incentive for him to work harder? If he's used to a lifestyle of consumption of $1 million a year, and suddenly he's only able to consume $800k/yr, wouldn't that mean he'd redouble his efforts and try to make more money if he couldn't accept such austerity? He certainly wouldn't dismantle his businesses and cut off the source of his income.

You clearly don't value your time. Schiff's input/brand is probably the core asset of his ventures (in fact that's something you always have to remember about the guy, he's selling himself). That means he probably leads a fairly stressful life, and might choose to exchange some of his labor for the leisure time he could clearly afford in either case. That means generating less business, and thus requiring fewer "cost centers" (like staff). One argument might be that if he does dismantle his business, someone else will just fill the void in the marketplace, and hire (possibly that same) staff. However, if it was the case that there was someone willing to do what Schiff does for substantially less than Schiff, it's likely they'd already be competing with him under the favorable tax rates.


Thirdly, on jobs, like dft said, employers hire exactly as many people as they need to produce the amount of goods (or services) they're able to sell, and not a single person more. They're not going to hire more people to produce more goods if they can't sell all of what they're currently producing, that would just be pure loss to them.

This isn't always true. Businesses often use recessions to "buy labor low" to prepare a competitive advantage for the next cycle. Propping up the labor market arguably never lets the labor market reach a valuation in which this market based counter-cyclic mechanism can take place. It's further arguable that if you allowed that mechanism to take place, the resulting employment allocation may be more efficient/sustainable than, e.g. taking a census. I'm a bleeding heart, so you don't have to tell me about breadlines and old people in the streets, but part of me feels as though the youth has become soft. They don't want to learn. They don't create with what they have. They play video games and argue on Videosift.


Putting more money into the hands of the suppliers isn't going to boost employment for exactly that reason. Employers will only hire new people if they need to produce more goods, and they're only going to produce more goods if their sales increase. You really need to put more money into the hands of people who want to consume, not those who want to produce. You need to find a large group of people who want to buy more things, but can't because they don't have the money. In other words, you need to put money into the hands of poor people, not rich factory owners.

See Schiff would say DON'T give money to the employers. Stop giving money to ANYBODY. Leave the money right where the market put it. Doing anything else just allows some asshole to hoodwink the whole damn country rather than just their clients. Personally I feel there needs to be some initial breaking up of the oligarchy if you really want to pursue that line of reasoning (i.e. sorry Schiff, we're taking your gold with our pitchforks), but that's just me.


Schiff doesn't seem to know all this stuff, which is why everyone should laugh in his face when he says he knows anything about economics.

Come on, we're classier than that.

They need to figure out something better to do with the capital gains tax. I'm not sure a straight out raise in the rate would help much.

To me the goal of a capital gains tax shouldn't be to generate revenue for the government but to control the volatility of the market. From my perspective a lot of stock value has nothing to do with the profitability of a company or its longer term prospects, but a completely artificial betting game played by computers.

Millionaires and Billionaires reap the benefits of this because they have the enough money to actually influence the market, plus they're constantly moving their money around. Regular folk with 401Ks aren't likely to move their money around a lot because they're too busy actually working on something other than analyzing market trends, plus they don't have enough money to make it worthwhile moving their money from one stock that's going to drop a point to another that's predicted to increase a few points.

Maybe they can tax large sums at a higher rate (maybe they already do), and/or a higher rate for selling off from a performing stock.

You may now eviscerate me on my ignorance of the market.

I checked your statement, Warren Buffett Salary is a fixed $100,000/year. It's been that salary forever. He should be paying very little taxes at that bracket compared to his actual income.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^quantumushroom:
The 'factory owner' paid for all those tax-paid services (military, police, fire protection, roads) at a higher rate than the average taxpayer.
No, he didn't. Capital gains taxes are lower than income taxes.
For average taxpayers, payroll tax is the biggest share of their tax burden, followed by sales tax, followed by income tax.
For the wealthy, their tax burden is mostly split between income tax and capital gains, and since capital gains is significantly lower than income tax, they do their best to rearrange their income so it comes in as capital gains.
That's how Warren Buffet's secretary winds up paying a higher effective rate than Warren Buffet.

This is BS. Utter BS. Underlying social contract? - I think the government broke that contract a long damn time ago!!!
I hire workers that paid way to damn much for their college education.
I, and their parents, paid taxes for them to get a crappy public education before that.
I ship product on poorly maintained roads, where the person standing with the stop/go sign gets more per hour than my warehouse workers.
My employees pay taxes on the money I pay them, which I have paid taxes as well.
I pay taxes on every cent I earn and my employer pays taxes on every product we sell.
I pay for every damn thing I use and pay taxes on every damn thing I buy.
If I should happen to work my a$$ off and get rich, guess what I did it by my own damn self DESPITE the government - not because of. And it's not luck - it's hard damn work. You make your own luck.
As far as incentive's for investing by giving a lower tax rate - yep that's what we do and there is nothing wrong with that. I make money and pay taxes on it. I buy something and I pay taxes on it. I save money and I pay taxes on the interest. I put some of what I have left in the Stock market - I TAKE RISKS on investing in companies which promotes their growth and the strengthening of our economy and IF I should happen to make money off of it then that is the reward for taking the risk. I shouldn't have to pay the same tax rate as if I had gotten it from my employer. My job doesn't incur risk, investing does. If you don't give an incentive to someone for taking risk, then you have no investment. I'd just buy government bonds at some crappy interest rate- just not in California or Illinois.
Yet we all focus on the part where she mentions capital gains tax and not the other part where she mentions Medicare, Medicaid, and 2 wars? How about we focus on changing those first couple of things and get our government to run EFFICIENTLY and then come back asking for more money.

Nice thumbnail pic. Seems somebody has an obsession.. it just gets under your skin he's not a fraud like your political heroes, huh?

You do realize that being a millionaire and having yearly income of $1 Mil are two different things right?

Wasn't Buffet's argument that he pays less taxes than his secretary because he doesn't have "income"? He only pays a capital gains tax of 15%? lolz So who's the clueless jackass that came up with the name "Buffet Rule" for a tax on high income earners?

And why the arbitrary number $1 Million? Why not $500k, or $50k? Does it really matter anyway? The Income tax was passed using wealth envy propaganda (pay their "fair share"). It originally started out only taxing the top 1% of income earners. But it quickly expanded once the government had their foot in the door (or hands in our wallets). There wouldn't be a need for income tax if we didn't still have to pay interest on money we borrowed that was created from nothing almost a century ago. Of course we can't pay off that false debt, because it's physically impossible.

What's even more fucked up about this whole thing is the ultra rich are always going to be given exceptions, rebates, loopholes, tax shelters, etc. Taxing "millionaires" is taxing small business owners that file their business gross income on their personal income returns. It completely ignores the criminals that have already made millions on Wall street through fraud and collusion. And it gives a pass to the crooks that are doing that now.

What if we actually did something constructive like list the millionaire politicians who REFUSE to prosecute Wall Street fraud. Isn't that the real reason we are here? Is taxing "millionaires" going to fix the problem?

The government has made it official policy not to prosecute fraud, and instead to do everything necessary to cover up for Wall Street.


William K. Black: This is the greatest financial crime in the history of the world and no one senior, at any of the major places that drove the crisis, has gone to jail?
...
Unless something dramatic or radical changes, this is going to be the greatest case of elite fraud with impunity in the history of the world. And it is only going to change if we express our outrage as the people and demand that it is changed.

Agreed that this is how it FEELS, primarily because everyone is familiar with the 'marginal tax rate' in which more income moves you up to a higher bracket.

This is also a very easy story to tell, and wealthier people are effectively 'louder' than poorer people.

In reality, the U.S. government incentivizes investment with lower taxation... Netrunner mentioned this as lower taxes on capital gains, meaning money you make from simply investing is not taxed as much as money you make from actually working; wealthy people take full advantage of this, to-be-sure, and this incentive does drive investment.

One-thing-to-add; although the non-wealthy are individually less able to invest, the capital gains tax is also tiered into brackets, just like the income tax, so that if you are in the lowest income bracket you pay 0% of any "long-term" investment income in capital gains taxes (in 2011). Obviously though its hard for people scraping by to feel confident enough in their financial position to take advantage of this.




>> ^quantumushroom:

The 'factory owner' paid for all those tax-paid services (military, police, fire protection, roads) at a higher rate than the average taxpayer.
Attention liberals: do not tie the basics of society to unAmerican socialist claptrap and confiscatory taxation.

Youre missing it entirely....the percentage those top 10% pay, is like 15%...where everyone else is paying 45%.

Capital gains tax as the only form of income tax paid is obscene...income is income, shouldn't matter where it comes from.

Drachen, it sounds like your beef with the rich is that they "hoard" money rather than pump it back into the economy. Your solution, then, it to increase the capital gains tax rate (what Obama is promoting in this video)? As a hypothetical rich person, I have two options as far as what to do with my money. I can put it into a safe but low-interest bank account or I can invest in capital (stock market, real estate, etc), where on average I stand to earn a greater interest rate but where I also put my money at much greater risk. If you disincentivize the latter with an increased capital gains tax rate, you are going to divert funds from being invested into the economy toward Scrooge McDuck's swimming pool.

And in case there is any confusion, rich people are not taxed at a lower net rate than poor people on INCOME. Rich people in the U.S. pay 39.6 cents on every dollar they make in income over $250,000 after deductions, while those who make less $39,600 after deductions are taxed at 15 cents to the dollar. However, traditionally, capital gains (as opposed to income) have been taxed at 15% flat. Why should capital gains be taxed at a lower rate than income? Arguments include:

1. Investment in capital is an investment in the economy. It is encouraged with a lower capital gains tax rate.
2. Money must first be earned as income before it can be invested. Therefore it has already been taxed. Capital gains tax in essence is a taxation on already taxed money.
3. Investment is risky, bringing in a salary is not. Risk averse spenders will not take risks unless they are incentivized to do so. But it is essential to the growth of our economy that this risk be taken. Refer to point 1.

>> ^quantumushroom:

The 'factory owner' paid for all those tax-paid services (military, police, fire protection, roads) at a higher rate than the average taxpayer.

No, he didn't. Capital gains taxes are lower than income taxes.

For average taxpayers, payroll tax is the biggest share of their tax burden, followed by sales tax, followed by income tax.

For the wealthy, their tax burden is mostly split between income tax and capital gains, and since capital gains is significantly lower than income tax, they do their best to rearrange their income so it comes in as capital gains.

That's how Warren Buffet's secretary winds up paying a higher effective rate than Warren Buffet.