It is really easy to fall into the trap of believe the philosophy of trickle down economics, but as Warren says the facts have never born this out.

Every time taxes are cut, it results in an increase in tax revenues because it increases personal wealth, which creates more tax payers, and establishes an environment that gives the private sector confidence. Carter’s 70% top marginal tax rates and leftist liberal policies brought the nation to fiscal collapse. Buffett has it 100% backwards. Taxes cut. Tax revenues up. It works every time. That’s why even OBAMA didn’t want to end the Bush tax cuts – because he himself admitted it would hurt the economy in December 2010. Neolibs like to ignore that particular bit of Obama rhetoric - but I do not forget such things...

Buffet believes that there should be two or three more levels to the tax code and that capital gains taxes should be graduated to appropriately tax the super rich who make money with money.

The problem is not that there isn’t a bigger tax category at the top. We’ve had a rate as high as 94% back in 1944. It was 70% under Carter. The problem is a labyrinthine tax code that people can game by moving money & assets around. We just need to simplify the code to eliminate the exemptions for businesses and the ‘money’ rich. There’s no need for a new, higher top marginal tax rate. The ‘rich’ already pay the bulk of our taxes.

Like him or not, Clinton's economic policies navigated our country to tremendous economic prosperity.

No. Clinton was nothing a serviceable – but barnacle-covered – rudder. He didn’t screw up what was already going well. That isn’t great praise, but it still makes him a better CiC than Bush2 or Obama. Bush1 was the guy that raised the taxes. Clinton merely coasted along on the dot-com bubble. Oh, and also the Republican “Contact with America” was forced down Clinton’s throat. And he had a few impeachable offenses that prevented him from pushing more spending. The GOP cut spending, which created an environment friendly for the business community to create prosperity. You can thank fiscal conservatives for the 90s and early 00s – not Clinton.

Sometimes doing the right thing means doing something unpleasant.

Yes – cutting big-government social spending in favor of small-government freedom-oriented systems is seen as unpleasant, but it is the right thing to do.

Dude, nobody in this thread is advocating a tax rate of 80% … Why is a moderate increase on tax rates paramount to pure socialism and gov't control on the economy?

I wryly notice that the actual QUESTION I posed remains stubbornly ignored. What would happen IF (!IF!) the tax rate at the top went to 70% ala Carter? Or 94% ala Roosevelt? Would the problems be solved? I think even the most dyed-in-the-wool neolib knows deep down in their reluctant-to-admit souls that high top marginal tax rates do not solve anything. Even a 100% tax rate does not come within 16.9 trillion (heh) miles of the real problem. Every thin dime of the new taxes would just vanish into a black hole, and the debt/deficit would not be touched except in name. We have precedence for this conclusion.

Tax hikes take place immediately, but the spending cuts are always pushed 10 years into the future where they disappear. Our tax rates are already high enough. Our corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the world. The issue is the huge amount of SPENDING taking place.

I hope this simple explanation helps all the neolibs out… Our current debt is 16.9 trillion dollars.

1. A simple federal budget freeze on spending to current 2011 levels would cut our debt by 10 trillion in 10 years.
2. Increasing the top marginal tax rate to 100% would cut the debt by 2 trillion in 10 years

Simple freeze? 10 trillion. A ridiculous 100% tax rate? Only 2 trillion. Where does that tell you the real problem lies? Fussing with tax rates at the top is nothing but rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The iceberg is spending.

Warren Buffet is saying that people who make more than a $1000K a year need to pay more than 15%. He advocates returning to the Clinton tax rates. And he thinks that job creation occurs when the rich are taxed and the middle class is supported by a lower tax rate.

You should read his NY Times article. It is really easy to fall into the trap of believe the philosophy of trickle down economics, but as Warren says the facts have never born this out. The truth is the economy grows more when the middle class (incomes less than $500K) are taxed at a lower rate than the upper class (greater than $500K). Buffet believes that there should be two or three more levels to the tax code and that capital gains taxes should be graduated to appropriately tax the super rich who make money with money.

Like him or not, Clinton's economic policies navigated our country to tremendous economic prosperity. We need to tax the rich. It is our only hope along with leaving Iraq and Afghanistan. Two wars were never economically sustainable. Sometimes doing the right thing means doing something unpleasant.

>> ^pyloricvalve:

Why is it morally justified to impose a higher tax rate on the more highly paid? I'm already paying twenty people's worth.. Why should it be more?

I think his beef is really with the capital gains tax and other loopholes for the superdupermegarich.

In the end, I generally agree with you, but I don't think it's accurate that the debt crisis is resolved by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Tax increase would obviously help, but it won't solve it alone.

The debt crisis was born of a few factors:

-Stimulus package (temp, self-correcting since it's ending)
-Massive increase in federal spending in the 2000's bread by two wars, homeland security, senior drug benefit, medicare, medicaid
-Tax revenue declines due to Bush tax cuts
-Sudden sharp declines in income and capital gains tax revenues due to economic collapse

We can't solve the whole thing by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. In fact, I would argue the first step in resolving it is get the economy back on track to increase income tax revenues naturally as the unemployment rate would fall, and pay would increase. I would also argue that we're gonna have to massively cut defense spending at some point. This could be done many different ways, such as pulling out of Iraq and/or Afghanistan, etc. But it's gonna have to be done at some point, although it maybe difficult to do in the short run. That leaves us with what is currently being debated by Congress and the President. I'm actually pretty perplexed that they're prioritizing the debt issue without first remedying the economy. I think the debt is a very important issue, but I also don't believe it will be resolved until unemployment returns to more normal rates, unless we're refusing to acknowledge what leaders may already know - it ain't gonna get better for a long long time regardless of what the gov't does, so we might as well stop adding to the debt.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^MarineGunrock:
What we really need is a law that says no member of congress shall be allowed to receive any money from any lobbying firm, business or individual who is a high-level employee (board member type guys) of any large company worth over "x" amount of dollars. Loopholes need to be closed, but social programs also need to be cut or seriously re-vamped. What REALLY needs to happen is to close behemoth and redundant federal offices that are better left to states or that sates already have.

Well, I'd definitely love to see some sort of reform aimed at the outright bribery we see going on in government. I'm not sure how we get that to happen, though.
As far as the debt goes, my opinion is that all the Congress can do in 2011 is set the budget for 2011 and 2012. Come 2013, it'll be a new Congress, and possibly a new President. There will be another new Congress in 2015, and another in 2017, plus a definite non-Obama President in the White House.
A little mentioned fact about this debt "crisis" is that all we need to do to balance the budget is for Congress to do nothing. No more Doc fixes, no more AMT patches, no more extension of the Bush tax cuts, etc. If we just let current law play out as it was written, the budget problem will no longer be an issue.
Even if congress doesn't do that, fixing our health care system has always been the real problem with the long-term budget. If we could get our medical costs down to just the level of the second-most expensive country in the world (Germany), then we'd be seeing big budget surpluses year after year. Maybe the HCR bill passed will do that once it's all in effect (in 2017!), but it's way too early to be putting those into the budget estimates. Maybe by 2020 we'll find out that we've actually put ourselves on track to be cheaper than Germany, and our budget picture will look really awesome.
I say we just focus on getting people back to work right now, and worry about the long-term debt in the long-term, especially since it might not actually be a problem in the long-term.

[Interviewer]: So, what do you think? Good versus evil. We’re playing out the debt struggle and the debt ceiling issue. And if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, we’ll be in the apocalypse. What do you make of it all?

HUDSON: I think it’s evil working with evil.... If you have to choose between paying Social Security and Wall Street, pay our clients, Wall Street.

***

What’s inefficient? Paying for people on Medicaid. Got to cut it. What’s inefficient? Medicare. Got to cut it. What’s inefficient? Paying Social Security. What is efficient? Giving $13 trillion to Wall Street for a bailout. Now, how on earth can the administration say, in the last three years we have given $13 trillion to Wall Street, but then, in between 2040 and 2075, we may lose $1 trillion, no money for the people?
***

It’s not about the debt ceiling. It’s about making an agreement now under an emergency conditions. You remember what Obama’s staff aide Rahm Emanuel said. He said a crisis is too important to waste. They’re using this crisis as a chance to ram through a financial policy, an anti-Medicare, anti-Medicaid, anti—selling out Social Security that they could never do under the normal course of things.

***

They’re not going to cut back the war in Libya.

***

They’re going to have to decide what to cut back. So they’re going to cut back the bone and they’re going to keep the fat, basically. They’re going to say–they’re going to try to panic the population into acquiescing in a Democratic Party sellout by cutting back payments to the people–Social Security, Medicare–while making sure that they pay the Pentagon, they pay the foreign aid, they pay Wall Street.

[Interviewer]: Yeah. But what–I hear you. But what I’m–I’m saying, what could be an alternative policy? For example, don’t raise the debt ceiling. Number two, raise taxes on the wealthy. Number three, cut back military spending. I mean, there are ways to do this without having to borrow more money, aren’t there?

HUDSON: Of course.
***

Of course they could cut back the fat. Of course what they should do is change the tax system. Of course they should get rid of the Bush tax cuts. And the one good thing in President Obama’s speech two days ago was he used the term spending on tax cuts. So that’s not the same thing as raising taxes. He said just cut spending by cutting spending on tax cuts for the financial sector, for the speculators who count all of their income that they get, billions of income, as capital gains, taxed at 15 percent instead of normal income at 35 percent. Let’s get rid of the tax loopholes that favor Wall Street.

***

Mr. Obama has always known who has been contributing primarily to his political campaigns. We know where his loyalties lie now. And, basically, he promised change because that’s what people would vote for, and he delivered the change constituency to the campaign contributors...

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts

Look at the top three. Are the rich (aka the top 1%) universally callous a-holes? No.

Are a statistically significant number of them hoarding a disproportionate helping of the gains achieved through productivity increases over a the last few decades? Yes.

Is that trend happening very, very quickly right now? Yes.

Oh, and about the above back and forth about tax rates, actual tax revenue as a share of GDP is lower than ever right now, personal income tax rates are lower than they've been since the 1920's, capital gains tax rate is lower than it's been since the 1920's, and the effective corporate tax rate (i.e. once you account for exemptions) is about 25%, which is well below the OECD average.

So yes, taxes are lower than ever here in the US.
>> ^quantumushroom:

Part of your writing is about what happened and the rest is about what you believe. Are the rich universally callous a-holes who care nothing about their employees? Some are like that, others ain't. Capitalism is like a military tank; it's better to be riding in the turret than getting caught under the treads.

*promote

Any neigh-sayers should look @ this information on the taxing of the wealthy over the past century before commenting.

^Those tax numbers that I linked do not include any capital gains taxes (or in other words, the rich could still sell stocks and other capital and make an assload off of it b/c Uncle Sam isn't taking nearly that much in the way of those forms of taxes); that being said there is, I believe, a clear pattern established that supports the idea that taxing the rich means prosperity for the country as a whole.

END THE BUSH TAX CUTS NOW!

"The Chinese pay zero capital gains tax."


China has a capital gains tax, so maybe he's talking about tax evasion? Their income tax also tops out at 45%, vs 35% in the US (I think I read that correctly).

Either way, the capital gains tax rate in China is not zero. Perhaps he's getting his financial data from the same place conservatives normally get their "scientific" data.

>> ^jwray:

If people aren't investing in T-Bills, they're either going to invest that money somewhere else or hoard it under their mattress. So deficit spending will help when confidence is low but won't be worthwhile at other times.
Ideally T-Bill interest rates shouldn't even be as much as inflation. You should actually have to make an informed choice and take a risk to make money, rather than participating in an ever-snowballing hereditary aristocracy.


The price on T-bills is set by auction, and I'm not so sure it'd be a wise idea to put a thumb on the scale with them. If we systematically undervalued them, then people who (randomly?) got them for less than others were willing to pay would just sell them to the people willing to pay more.

As for stopping a snowballing hereditary aristocracy, you can't eliminate the market for safe investment instruments entirely. For example, you can still buy Canadian debt, British debt, German debt, Japanese debt, AT&T debt, Microsoft debt, McDonald's debt, WalMart debt, etc.

Besides which, that's not how the snowballing hereditary aristocracies I'm familiar with have maintained an empire. Instead they hire talented people to manage their investments to maximize return while managing risk, and enjoy the endless flood of riches that result.

It seems like estate taxes, capital gains taxes, progressive income taxes and the like are the only reliable way to stop hereditary aristocracies from snowballing into virtual monarchies.

>> ^rougy:
>> ^quantumushroom:
tl;dfw
More race card sh;t.
Sane person: And that's why I think Obama's plan to raise the capital gains tax will prolong any recession.
Liberal: You just wanna kill people with BROWN skin! Hate crime!
Sane person: Remember to vote November 5th.

Only a fuckstick like you would take a parody that exposes the shallowness of racism and equate it with some invisible phantom robbing you of your money.



HAH !

This site would be so much more pleasant if it wasn't completely overwhelmed by 16 year old liberal nutjobs like Nithern who haven't done enough research to realize that both Dems and Repubs have been complete fiscal retards for a really long time. Nithern, you bring up the old Clinton surplus myth. Read this:

http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16

If you can't understand it, let me break it down for you: there was never a surplus under Clinton. Ever. There are two parts of the national debt. Imagine you're a household and you have a mortgage and credit card debt. You take out a second mortage on your home and pay down some of your credit card debit. Home debt goes up, credit card debt goes down. Then you go all over the city and tell people you reduced your credit card debt! Whee! You don't tell them you went deeper into debt elsewhere in order to do it. Do you realize how ridiculous of an accomplishment this is?

Moreover, Social Security payments are adjusted for the CPI. The CPI is the government's way of calculating rises in the cost of living. In the 90s, the Boskin commission was formed to look for "bias" in the way the CPI was calculated. Let me translate that for you: hey guys, we need reduce Social Security obligations without anyone noticing by subjectively omitting certain price increases, thereby artificially lowering the CPI against which SS payments are adjusted.

http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/2005/0624.html

Perhaps there is no accurate measure for the underemployed, but discouraged workers (jobless for over a year) are no longer counted when they used to be prior to the Clinton admin. It's a goofy new category created to intentionally make the number look more timid that historical numbers and nothing more. Both the CPI and the way unemployment are calculated changed during the Clinton administration as short term "fixes" of problems that need real solutions that no citizen is ever going to vote for. So if you think Clinton solved jack shit fiscally, I've got news for you: we're going to need something 100x more potent. And it won't happen, because people are retards like you. Think about it. You bitch about the Iraq war, and rightfully so, but before you were born the Democrats started a useless little war called "Vietnam" that led to Nixon severing our currency's last link to gold. Oh, and we lost about 50k soldiers. Which is sad, because you can always count on communism to fail by itself, which is exactly what happened after we pulled out.

You cry about the lack of Republican regulation. We need more regulation like we need a hole in the head. You don't even know what the word means, it's just some magical decree for officiating infractions in a game that can't exist without "subsidy fever". I mean, there's laws against stealing and killing and defrauding, and then there's handing out free money while impossibly trying to stop people from gambling with it. People's hope for gain is NORMALLY offset by their fear of loss. That goes out the window in an economy where anyone can borrow foreign money cheaply for a depreciating asset that they're convinced is an infinitely appreciating piggy bank. It goes out the window WITHIN the government, because politicians are by nature operating with money it appropriated rather than labored for. A "GSE" like Fannie and Freddie need way more regulation that any bankruptcy-fearing company.

Moreover, no one cares what bank they give their money because all bank deposits are insured by the FDIC. No investor gave a shit what loans Freddie and Fannie were spewing out because they were implicitly backed by the federal government. The home bubble got a huge boost from a 97 tax law excepting certain home sales from capital gains taxes. Because politicians like being the candyman. They don't think about the unintended consequences of creating artificial demand and employment in certain sectors with all their subsidy intervention bullshit. TO THIS DAY, FHA loans are being made requiring only 3% down. All the private subprime lenders? Couldn't have happened unless a politically motivated central bank exists to PRICE FIX the cost of borrowing in the market. Spike the punch, see mayhem that ensues, then resolve that the solution isn't to kill the spiker, but rather to hire more police officers to regulate the effects caused by the spiker. That's great logic. I hope you're regulating your regulators, too, because the SEC was told of Madoff's scheme 8 FUCKING TIMES and didn't do jack shit about it. I have more confidence in genuine personal risk of loss regulating behavior than some fucknut at the SEC. If only you would support an economy that wasn't so awash in fucking subsidies.

Social Security is another Democrat timebomb. Why not bring that shit up? It operates like a ponzi scheme and if you know how ponzi schemes work, you know that early investors win at the supreme expense of later investors. Guess who that later investor is? It's you!

NetRunner: "Progressives don't like it when big business get our tax dollars. Usually we argue for things like small business subsidies, regular welfare (ya know, for poor people), anti-trust legislation and enforcement, etc. We also don't like corporate tax loopholes, capital gains tax cuts, or attempts to eliminate or reduce estate taxes, or the porcine industry-specific tax cut."

How's fighting the good fight working out for you? Obviously not well so far. Don't worry, keep at it, and maybe in another two hundred years this big government thing will finally work itself out and become that nonincentivized national utopia you and the neocons always wanted.


NetRunner: The free market provides me with tax preparation services, though most of them tell me "you don't own enough for us to do much for you"

Ah... It's a personal vendetta. Now I'm seeing it. Mad at the world because it hasn't made good on the things you felt entitled to? Mommy told you you were special and you believed her, didn't you? I can see why you are how you are now. LOL!

You're right, though, I don't fully understand my credit card agreement. And, when I feel it's unfair I disagree to it, and typically they want to rectify the issues to ensure I remain their customer. I also pay them off. I also understand credit isn't a right. Maybe to those who think the world owes them something may also think the credit card companies owe them free money.

Credit card companies can appear to be unscrupulous at times, but people still see enough of a demand to use them so they can afford to be that way. If the demand for credit was much lower, then they would probably make their agreements more customer friendly. But, because people want it, they can be a bit more unruly with the terms of conditions.

But, you have a choice whether or not to sign that contract. You don't have a choice in signing a contract with the government. Consider this. If you wanted to borrow money (credit) you don't have to do so at the bank, you could do it from your friend, and you can work out any agreement you choose. However, if you decide to get married, you are forced to sign a contract with the government as they see it should be written.

Try negotiating your contract with the government and let's see how that works out for you. At least with the credit card companies everything is negotiable.

>> ^NetRunner:
What is government doing to keep the concept of corporations in existence that private citizens wouldn't be able to do through contract?

>> ^blankfist:
Corporate power depends greatly on the intervention of government - how often do you see private business (read: small business) receive subsidies and bailouts? Ever heard of Corporate welfare? Yes? Ever heard of private business or free market welfare? No? Hmm.
How about protectionist tariffs? Heard of those? Grants of monopoly privilege? Seizing of private property for corporate use via eminent domain (as in Kelo v. New London)? Shall I go on or can we stop there?

Progressives don't like it when big business get our tax dollars. Usually we argue for things like small business subsidies, regular welfare (ya know, for poor people), anti-trust legislation and enforcement, etc.

We also don't like corporate tax loopholes, capital gains tax cuts, or attempts to eliminate or reduce estate taxes, or the porcine industry-specific tax cut.

We don't like when people are putting their hands in the cookie jar who shouldn't be, we just don't think getting rid of the jar will help fix the problem.

Me: To mildly rephrase dft's question, how does libertarianism defend against private power and influence taking advantage of people's lack of information or knowledge to their own detriment?
blankfist: Hardly "mildly" rephrased. Corporations and private are hugely different. That aside, your point is very valid. Let me ask you this? What has stopped this from happening now? Government is the power in that scenario, and they steal our money and use it to fund war and pay out no bid contracts to very powerful corporations. Your petty watchdog programs aren't working. Government is the power and influence.

I fail to see how detaching power and influence from the constraint of law, or the accountability of a ballot box improves anything.

If you have a suggestion on how to make sure that the people our Constitution and our democracy empower to make decisions regarding when to go to war will always use it wisely, I'm all ears.

And government certainly takes advantage of those who are less educated. Have you read any of the tax codes? Hey, ever heard this one: "Ignorance of the law is no excuse!" Would you dare agree with me that it's impossible to know all the laws, so therefore it's inevitable for you to be ignorant of them? Your government is "taking advantage of people's lack of information of knowledge" and doing so with our money.
Any questions?

Yes, are you nuts?

The tax code is too complex, but the real issue with it is not the complexity, it's the fact that most of that complexity is designed to benefit people with multiple homes, businesses, yachts, and complex investment portfolios.

The free market provides me with tax preparation services, though most of them tell me "you don't own enough for us to do much for you" (though they say it very differently).

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but when's the last time you faced a legal penalty for anything bigger than a traffic violation? For that matter, have you ever gotten a traffic violation for something you didn't know was illegal?

To turn that around, do you understand your credit card agreement? Your cellphone contract? Have you ever received a bill that included a fee you were charged for doing something you didn't realize they could charge a fee for? Should they be able to sell the information you provided them without your consent?

Why isn't the free market stopping that stuff from happening already?

Flagged, though corporate YouTube will bow to corporate-brand Right-Wing Christianity^*

* The version in which the Bible says only three things: abortion is murder, gay sex is evil, and capital gains taxes are an abomination.

>> ^quantumushroom:
tl;dfw
More race card sh;t.
Sane person: And that's why I think Obama's plan to raise the capital gains tax will prolong any recession.
Liberal: You just wanna kill people with BROWN skin! Hate crime!
Sane person: Remember to vote November 5th.


Only a fuckstick like you would take a parody that exposes the shallowness of racism and equate it with some invisible phantom robbing you of your money.