False. First of all, the top 10% aren't rich, most of them are middle class. Second of all, the top 10% don't pay 70% of "the tax" per your own link they pay that high a percentage of the INCOME tax. What percentage of the payroll tax (40% of federal revenue, and equal in magnitude to income tax) do they pay? If we count their capital gains as income, what's their effective tax rate? How about if we count all taxes (e.g. sales), and break down the effective tax rate?

I'm fine with cutting spending, so long as the spending getting cut in lieu of tax increases comes entirely from the spending funded by the income tax which you are apparently complaining is too progressive. That means slashing the defense budget exclusively because frankly that is the only significant contributor to the deficit paid out of the general fund (other than interest on your party's debt, much of which is owed to the Social Security fund). Medicare and Social Security are both financed by FICA which is not the unfair tax you seem so concerned about.

Any dollar cut from Social Security and Medicare should be repaid by a dollar of payroll tax cuts, not income tax cuts.

The fact is when the tax rate was much more fair and taxing the rich was accepted we had the most unprecedented period of growth in the history of the world. It was like fiscal viagra. We've given up on that period from the 50s to the 70s and instead are just asking to go back to the 90s taxation. When rich people were still doing INCREDIBLY WELL, and they won't budge.

It's amazing how much power we give the rich in our society, that's the only way they are able to do these things.

You lefties have nothing to worry about. There is no such thing as federal mafia 'spending cuts', it's a myth.

And under taxocrat rule--SURPRISE!--taxes ARE going up, and already have.

You should see the list of new obamacare taxes ready to pounce, I only wish they hit all at once, so you could feel the full effect of your folly.

As for "punishing" the rich, won't happen. Higher tax rates do not equal more revenue. The smart money left town long ago. I don't blame anyone, liberal or not, for investing in other countries or keeping their money in low-yield non-taxable investments.

You and me on the other hand, still need jobs...

IF YOU THOUGHT HEALTH CARE WAS EXPENSIVE BEFORE, WAIT UNTIL OBAMARXCARE MAKES IT FREE!


Although some of the "fiscal cliff" taxes can be avoided through a deal made in Congress, new ObamaCare taxes are guaranteed to kick in on January 1, amounting to $268 billion tax hike.

The Obamacare Medical Device Tax – a $20 billion tax increase: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will increase the cost of your health care – making everything from pacemakers to prosthetics more expensive.

The Obamacare “Special Needs Kids Tax” – a $13 billion tax increase: The 30-35 million Americans who use a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs will face a new government cap of $2,500 (currently the accounts are unlimited under federal law, though employers are allowed to set a cap).

There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are several million families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families.

The Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income – a $123 billion tax increase: This is a new, 3.8 percentage point surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income:


The Obamacare “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deductions – a $15.2 billion tax increase: Currently, those Americans facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). This tax increase imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. By limiting this deduction, Obamacare widens the net of taxable income for the sickest Americans. This tax provision will most harm near retirees and those with modest incomes but high medical bills.

The Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Hike --an $86.8 billion tax increase: The Medicare payroll tax is currently 2.9 percent on all wages and self-employment profits. Under this tax hike, wages and profits exceeding $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of married couples) will face a 3.8 percent rate instead. This is a direct marginal income tax hike on small business owners, who are liable for self-employment tax in most cases.

Not only does this tax increase costs on companies, it also increases costs on hospitals, doctors and people in need of medical treatment that requires medical devices to be used. As a consequence of this, biomedical or medical device engineering firms are already laying off workers who develop crucial medical products due to the "unforeseen" costs, or in other words, the costs of ObamaCare. Not to mention, the more money these companies pay to the government, the less money they have to invest in research and development.

With this new medical device tax, students who pay large sums of money to get degrees in the field of biomedical engineering, just like doctors, will no longer see the benefits of going into the field and therefore, we will have a shortage of engineers developing new medical device technology. The medical device tax is a death sentence for American medical innovation.

OWN IT, LIBS!

Lv,

QM

Would you support the closing of such loopholes used by tax evaders?

>> ^quantumushroom:


Liberals think that raising tax rates = higher revenue. Nope. The wealthy simply put their money in tax-free investments with smaller returns or invest overseas.

Do you have any facts to back up your claim?

Liberals think that raising tax rates = higher revenue. Nope. The wealthy simply put their money in tax-free investments with smaller returns or invest overseas.

It's the middle class--whom liberals claim to support--who gets it in the ass. To wit, Obamacare.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

Ben Stein may be a Right Wing ass, but he actually understands numbers (apparently unlike all the other Right Wing asses on Fox).
You cannot raise government revenues by lowering taxes! Real economics do not work by magical thinking.

“The facts are unmistakably plain for those who bother to check the facts. In 1921 when the tax rate on the people making over $100,000 a year was 73 percent, the federal government collected a little over 700 million in income taxes of which 30 percent was paid by those making over $100,000. In 1929 after a series of tax rate reductions had cut the tax rate to 24 percent on those making over $100,000 the federal government collected more than $1 billion in income taxes of which 65 percent was collected from those making over $100,000.”

--T. Sowell



Higher tax rates on the rich don’t necessarily mean higher revenue.

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...

As much as I would like to agree with you that the government doesn't feel sorry for spending tax money; we have been led to believe that tax breaks and loopholes for the rich specifically, did not and will create more jobs. After 11 years of practice, this proved to be a fruitless that only benefited the upper echelon. You want an example? Take Romney's money in Switzerland and The Cayman Island for example. I am sure he has the right to do with his money whatever he wants, but a show of good faith would be to invest that money back into the economy (tickle-down) instead of parking it overseas. That, I have a HUGE problem with.

I would be taxed more under a re-elected Obama, and I don't mind that because of the greater good. Today, he is the lesser of two evils. I would vote for Romney if he actually believed what he said, but his actions and his words don't go together - see previous paragraph.

It would be dishonest for anyone to think that lowering taxes alone, or cutting the deficit alone would stop the hemorrhaging.

>> ^quantumushroom:

When tax rates are lowered, government revenue increases.
When tax rates are raised, the wealthy scapegoats remove monies from the system, either by parking them in things like tax-exempt bonds or investing in countries with lower tax rates.
However Obama tries to explain away what we on the right have known and have empirical evidence to back it up, his results have been negative. Such failure should not be rewarded by punishing the rest of us with 4 more years of this rubbish!

When tax rates are lowered, government revenue increases.

When tax rates are raised, the wealthy scapegoats remove monies from the system, either by parking them in things like tax-exempt bonds or investing in countries with lower tax rates.

However Obama tries to explain away what we on the right have known and have empirical evidence to back it up, his results have been negative. Such failure should not be rewarded by punishing the rest of us with 4 more years of this rubbish!

>> ^bobknight33:

Government sets the policies that makes it desirable to ship jobs over seas, for the rich to pay less tax rate that others.
They had the chance to make change and squander their opportunity. Democrat voters hoped for change.
All voters are left with is change in their pockets.
Obama is an utter failure.


Well he hasn't attacked any more countries for no reason other than oil money, and he hasn't gone from a surplus to a $10 trillion deficit while stripping away all meaningful privacy laws..

.. & while creating an army of thousands of broken, radicalized orphans who want to destroy America..
(who are now in their late teens/early twenties BTW)

It'll take several presidents to fix Dubya's mess even with 8 year terms each.. what are the odds buffoons like you switch him out for another maniac before the job is done..?

I did, I was specifically agreeing with and expounding on the "We don't need a fair tax rate" statement. Maybe I misunderstood, if you're saying that a 9% is a fair tax, then I disagree with you, for the reasons I gave in my reply.
>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^KnivesOut:
@xxovercastxx agreed 9% of income when your gross is $25,000 is a lot more of a sacrifice than 9% when your gross is $250,000. The whole "flat tax" approach is another thinly-disguised attempt to shift the tax burden downward.

Thanks for being so agreeable but it appears you didn't actually read my comment.

The much attested "fair tax rate" is a red herring frequently used by politicians of all stripes. A flat rate is "fair" by some measure. Hell, even a flat amount (eg $5000/year) is "fair". Progressive brackets like we have now and an even more drastically progressive taxes are also "fair" by certain measure.

This is all hollow rhetoric written to make you feel as if disagreeing with the speaker is unfair, wrong, immoral. We don't need a fair tax rate; we need an effective, sustainable tax rate whether it's 9% across the board or 0%-80% based on income brackets.

>> ^bobknight33:

Government sets the policies that makes it desirable to ship jobs over seas, for the rich to pay less tax rate that others.

They had the chance to make change and squander their opportunity.
Democrat voters hoped for change.
All voters are left with is change in their pockets.
Obama is an utter failure.


No he's a complete success. What was he supposed to do? Help the financial industry, those who got him elected. They got billions and they're doing better than ever, so you're wrong he's done good and that's why he's gotten unprecedented funding for his reelection.

Government sets the policies that makes it desirable to ship jobs over seas, for the rich to pay less tax rate that others.


They had the chance to make change and squander their opportunity.

Democrat voters hoped for change.

All voters are left with is change in their pockets.

Obama is an utter failure.