Tax cuts

[Nabubrush]

Fox News is sabre-rattling about the tax cuts - the implication is that the Dems are holding things up because they want families making less than $50k to have to pay $3k more in taxes, when in reality it's the GOP who wants the families making $500k to not have to pay $10k more and therefore they want all the tax cuts extended, when the rich guys could probably stand to pay a bit more (and notice the difference in proportions there).

I hate Fox News, and I hate Boehner.

[greenkoolayd]

death is the best tax cut ever

[Asherdan]

When taxes go up, revenues go down.

You can change the revenuers game how-what you what, but there it is.

[Choop]

all the super-hiked revenues since reagan's days in office haven't solved our issues, maybe it's time to stop relying so much on revenues and let some tax rates ease back up toward something more sane. something like the top 10% of earners in the US own 80% of the wealth in the nation, and the poverty and unemployment rolls just keep getting longer. this isn't a picture of a world-leading superpower, a land of opportunity. slowly but surely we're becoming an oligarchy masked as a republic, amassing a class of superelite rich who control the purse-strings and thereby our policies. something's gotta give.

[AugustWest]

all the super-hiked revenues since reagan's days in office haven't solved our issues, maybe it's time to stop relying so much on revenues and let some tax rates ease back up toward something more sane. something like the top 10% of earners in the US own 80% of the wealth in the nation, and the poverty and unemployment rolls just keep getting longer. this isn't a picture of a world-leading superpower, a land of opportunity. slowly but surely we're becoming an oligarchy masked as a republic, amassing a class of superelite rich who control the purse-strings and thereby our policies. something's gotta give.

...becoming.   Rrrrright.

[Asherdan]

Sure, you can do that just fine. Just be ready for revenues to go down and figure out what programs are going to become unfunded.

I don't like the road things are going down but I've got no real taste for doing something that has proved out to do even worse.

How about a new approach? Maybe do a reverse role tier that'll have 90% of revenues coming from the top 7.5% and cap total annual assessment revenues to a percentage of GDP? While we're at it, hows about throwing out 97% of the tax code and streamlining that summbitch?

I'm throwing ideas at the wall here (I'm not even claiming they're great ideas) but all I'm hearing is the same old shit of jacking up Johnny-Got-Some and I'm so flipping tired of it I want to grasp it with crushy-crushy hands and squeeeeeze...

I want new ideas, is what I'm saying. I'm a stupid stupid man in many ways but even I can see some of those.

[Nabubrush]

When taxes go up, revenues go down.

You can change the revenuers game how-what you what, but there it is.

I think that's more true for those that don't have much as opposed to those that have lots. And if you'll note the comparo there, The haves are paying proportionally less than the have nots. I mean, 50k pays 3k and 500k pays 10k? I can do math. Yeah, yeah, the tax rate is higher for rich people, but we all know they don't pay it.

[Asherdan]

Says the guy talking to a point I already left in the dust...

[jaydub]

Yeah, yeah, the tax rate is higher for rich people, but we all know they don't pay it.

This is kind of a point that gets lost amongst the Eat The Rich crowd.  When the cost of paying taxes gets intolerable, more effort will go towards stashing/hiding income (offshore bank accounts, exploiting loopholes with the aid of lawyers specializing in byzantine tax code, etc).

[Arachno-capitalist]

The highest income earners pay the bills in this country, they also buy the debt we print to perpetuate this contrived diabolical government death spiral. The uberwealthy and retired who live on dividends and interest have only recently been given the cap gains tax break.
Heres what IM saying: Keep those cap taxes out of the picture while taxing the hell out high-incomes and more people will retire and live off their investments. The old senior management is then out of the picture, sucking the junior management into higher positions for less pay - saving the company money they can then use to hire more labor = more people working, higher profits, less unemployment, more people paying into the tax system to support the entitlement programs.
I've heard two other schemes Im not willing to get behind: Tax wealth, not income. You start taxing Dick Fuld's 450 million dollar art collection, and he'll be more likely to spread the money to other more productive ends.

The other one would only make sense to an economist: Tax the lowest earners the highest amount, because you know, they need some motivation to work harder so they can pay less taxes.

In other tax related news, I learned today that the government wants to subsidize my R&D budget with a tax credit (because they want us to invent things in America)... so now the race is on to make things be R&D costs.

[Asherdan]

Saying "let's soak the rich more" is useless end cycle stuff.

I'm talking about changes that move towards more truly proportional tax payments while eliminating the decades worth of special-favours-layers that have accumulated in the tax codes. The throwback to the rich fella (or entity) is by giving a forecastable cap on tax payments you're getting back some cost certainty under which they can then decide how many of them greenbacks to free up to take a walk and see how many buddies they'll bring back.

Tip o' the can to Jaydub for putting a name to the thing that bothers me about how this often gets talked about.

Cappys, second discarded option is friggin' evil hilarious.

[theinevitable]

man, I really like that now, when I read people saying that 250k isn't that rich, I can say "that is considerably more than 10 times my income."

I cannot imagine what I would do with that much money.

(OK, actually, I guess I can if I had a family and kids and house and car and stuff. otherwise, it's guitars all the way down.)

[Asherdan]

Interesting thing about 250k...it ain't rich, at least not that right now kind of rich...but if you live smart and give it 40 years you can go to your golden years doing PDG.

The trick is to have the patience to make shit consistently happen over the long run.

[Arachno-capitalist]

250k doesn't get you into the stratosphere like it used to, and with inflation, $1M=$250k by the time we're looking at retirement. If you made $250k a year you would likely buy and maintain home and family. Or you could do what my friends are doing and just look for a f'ing island to buy where you can escape all the people you pissed off while you were making your money. Seriously people, young, single, married-to-their-careers, aggressive dudes with nothing to spend money on has resulted in a really entertaining scenario that involves guns, lion steak, and conversations about the best island to buy.

Everything in the world is like some Dada performance art piece and we've all been roped into acting gigs.

[Nabubrush]

Says the guy talking to a point I already left in the dust...

Well, let's not get all excited about not staying on topic, given the thread didn't stay on topic two posts.