# $200K/year isn't rich. Why aren't we taxing corporations? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 12, 2011, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110 "2011-09-12T23:36:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/281 "2011-09-15T16:13:05Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > How “newspeak” of you. “War is peace”. “Freedom is slavery”. “If I take less money from you I am assisting you”. > > Taking less money from someone is not “assistance”. It is still taking money from them. I invite you to compare and contrast the practical attributes of a $300 tax cut, a $300 tax rebate, and a book of $300 worth of food stamps. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/282 "2011-09-15T16:14:23Z")
More “newspeak” “4x average national income can’t be defined as ‘rich’ as long as there are people making 6x national income.” ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/283 "2011-09-15T16:14:31Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > It is incrementally better. Look up what “qualitative” vs “quantitative” is. From Merriam Webster: Definition of QUALITATIVE : of, relating to, or involving quality or kind Am I right in saying that by quadrupling your income, your life is incrementally better, but in a broad sense, you still have all the same problems you had before? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/284 "2011-09-15T16:21:15Z")
> [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](#): > > I invite you to compare and contrast the practical attributes of a $300 tax cut, a $300 tax rebate, and a book of $300 worth of food stamps. In the first, the government takes less of your money. In the second, the government takes more of your money, but gives some of it back. In the third, the government gives you money, period, without any relation to the money it takes from you. As for “practical attributes” - not sure what you mean. Can you compare and contrast the “practical attributes” of someone robbing you of $1000 in the street, and you gifting $1000 to that someone? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/285 "2011-09-15T16:21:34Z")
I guess the best way to describe what some of us are talking about would be to compare household items. 25k: House brand bacon. 50k: Name brand bacon (Oscar mayer, Blue Ribbon, Smithfield, etc…) 200k: Nueske’s organic bacon, or other mass-market premium bacon that you buy at whole foods. Rich: Your private chef cures his own pork bellies to your specific taste. \*\* The first 3 are mass market versions of the same thing, but the 4th is an entirely different level.\*\* You could do the same with cars: 25k: Beater 2000 Oldsmobile 50k: 2005 era minivan 200k: 2009 Prius Rich: Someone else drives you in your 2011 Mercedes. To answer \*\* Cheesesteak’s \*\* question out of turn: > [@](#): > > Am I right in saying that by quadrupling your income, your life is incrementally better, but in a broad sense, you still have all the same problems you had before? Yes, that’s pretty accurate. Most of the problems are the same. In general, they can afford more of the same, or nicer versions of the same, but there’s not this quantum leap in capabilities or spending power that some seem to think they have. You have to be truly rich to have that happen. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/286 "2011-09-15T16:21:52Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > It is incrementally better. Look up what “qualitative” vs “quantitative” is. Doesn’t make any sense. “Better” is a qualitative term. But anyway, if all the money between 20K and 200K doesn’t make much difference and living on 200K is “pretty much the same” then you may as well give up the other 180K. Why are you so concerned about a possible tax increase? ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/287 "2011-09-15T16:23:09Z")
It kinda make you wonder, if $150K makes no qualitative difference, why all the pissing and moaning about the couplefew grand you’ll have to pay in taxes? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/288 "2011-09-15T16:25:52Z")
> [@](#): > > Let’s try to figure it out. > > $200K income will get you $120K net or so. > > Now let’s look at reasonable monthly expenses for an upper middle class family - husband, wife, one kid. Not “rich” - just upper middle class. Somewhere like California or NYC. > > # $4K mortgage payment $1.2K groceries $1.5K school tuition for kid (if in private school) $1K real estate taxes $800 utilities/internet/cable $400 gas/car insurance $400 entertainment > > $9.3K total. Multiply by 12 = 111K - basically there is your 120K. And I really just took basics into account. Left out all kinds of expenses. I am sure you can think of quite a few. I’m going to quibble with a different part of this: The $400 per month entertainment budget. And my quibble isn’t at all that I manage to pay much less than that for perfectly enjoyable entertainment. My quibble is that the basic value for an entertainment budget is zero dollars. Once you’ve paid off your basic expenses, anything that goes above that is entertainment. If I’m choosing to spend the extra money beyond ramen, canned tuna, and baked beans for gourmet food, it’s because I get more enjoyment from the gourmet food: In other words, the difference in price between the gourmet food and the ramen is entertainment. If I choose to live in a house bigger than the shack I actually need, it’s because I get more enjoyment from the bigger house: That’s entertainment, too. _Anything_ above the basics is entertainment, and entertainment itself is never a basic. Oh, and this is just absurd: > [@](#): > > I am one of those people. I know a lot of those people. We do live pretty much the same as you. We grocery shop. We compare prices. We don’t drive Ferraris. We don’t have indoor swimming pools and tennis courts. We fly economy class and queue up on Southwest same as you. We do not stay in penthouse suites in hotels and do not jet to the south of France for a weekend. I don’t see much difference. If you’re living the same lifestyle now as when you were making 50k a year, then where’s all this extra spending coming from? If your current lifestyle isn’t any different from the 50k lifestyle, then why don’t you have the same set of basics as someone making 50k? Now, sure, you can afford to spend more beyond the basics than you used to be able to do-- That’s fine. But a change in what the basics are is a qualitative change, not just a quantitative one. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/289 "2011-09-15T16:29:11Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > You are conflating two uses of the word “rich”. But that’s not how the term is being used here. It is being used as a group identifier. There already exists a perfectly good sociological definition for this group: those who “earn” much or all of their pay from such things as investments and money-management, contrasting with those who earn their pay from, well, pay. With of course some notable exceptions. Sociologists, like any specialty, can use whatever technical terms and terms of art that they want to. That doesn’t mean that their use of a term becomes the “correct” one. A lawyer, a psychiatrist, and an average person may all use the word “insane”. But unless we’re in a courtroom or laying on a couch talking about our mothers, the common usage is the appropriate one. That said, there are serious problems with the definition you propose. Were Roman aristocrats “rich”? If so, what were their investments? Did they hire hedge-fund managers? How about all kings and nobles throughout history in a wide variety of cultures and geographical areas? If one’s lands and agricultural or natural bounty counts as an “investment”, then nearly every farmer who has ever lived is rich by your definition - they earn much or all of their daily bread from their investments. By this definition, someone living like Thoreau at Walden is rich. By this definition, hunter / gatherer natives of Papua New Guinea are, to a one, _rich_. > [@](#): > > This meaning is better than the alternatives proposed exactly because it isn’t dependant on totally arbitrary cut-off points. The definition you propose is just as arbitrary. You use the exact words: “all or much of their pay”. Well, how much is “much”? Where do you draw the line? 51% of total income? 75%? This is _exactly_ as arbitrary as any other suggestion made in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/290 "2011-09-15T16:29:47Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > It kinda make you wonder, if $150K makes no qualitative difference, why all the pissing and moaning about the couplefew grand you’ll have to pay in taxes? Apparently it’s because taxes are theft and theft is criminal. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/291 "2011-09-15T16:30:38Z")
So, blahblahblahpointofagunandotherstupidshitfishcakes? ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/292 "2011-09-15T16:31:54Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I am one of those people. I know a lot of those people. We do live pretty much the same as you. We grocery shop. We compare prices. We don’t drive Ferraris. We don’t have indoor swimming pools and tennis courts. We fly economy class and queue up on Southwest same as you. We do not stay in penthouse suites in hotels and do not jet to the south of France for a weekend. I don’t see much difference. The only one claiming that you need to have a Ferrari and a Tennis Court to be rich are the people in this thread trying to convince us that the top 3% income earners of one of the richest countries in human history isn’t “rich”. That takes such definitional jiujitsu that almost no one is rich. If you don’t wonder how you will have to pay a bill, you do not live at all like many many millions of Americans. Which is not a bad thing, congratulations on your good fortune. Just don’t try to talk to me like I’m a chump and say that we are even in the same neighborhood financially. And that you can’t afford tax increases. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/293 "2011-09-15T16:37:11Z")
> [@gurujulp](#): > > Actually, on re-reading, I think you are right- these specific statements were not in and of themselves _particularly_ slanted that way, but the overall tone and apparent POV of this individual, when connected to calling me a liar, gently, but claiming my untruths, not once, but twice, makes me not want to run around in an attempt to defend my integrity. > > But yes, it was more of the continued, “You aren’t telling the truth!” statements that caused my reaction, as opposed to any other direct insult that bothered me. > > Thank you. I suspect you aren’t being entirely honest but I am not calling you a liar, I just think the picture you paint is unrealistic. Let’s try again: Are you really claiming that someone who makes $200,000 a year, has to decide between taking a vacation that year, or flying some guests in at a cost of (let’s be GENEROUS and say their tickets are $1500 for a couple, which is absurd since I pay around 1000 to fly from the west coast U.S. to the PHILIPPINES every year)? Do you think it sounds convincing that someone who makes 200k a year can’t take a vacation if they spend an unplanned $1500? Why can I do it when I make around 8x less? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/294 "2011-09-15T16:42:29Z")
> [@bump](#): > > That’s not at all what I’m trying to say. What I’m trying to say is that there are people who make 200k and people who are RICH, and that there’s a wide gulf of difference between them, almost certainly a bigger gulf than between 50k and 200k per year. > > The gap between 25k and 200k is probably more similar to the 200k-RICH gap, but that still doesn’t make the 200k person rich, it just points out that the 25k person is really not well off. > > 200k is definitely comfortable- wealthy even. But hardly rich, unless you’re looking at it by some global standard, at which point 50k per year is also rich. > > 25k per year sucks. 50k is sustainable. 250k is a more comfortable version of that. But 1 million a year is a whole other animal than 200k Old is always at least 10 years older than your current age and rich is always at least twice your current net worth. My father in law has his own custom built plane, a giant house, hires out helicopters to take him to ski slopes and had art worth tens of thousands of dollars on his wall. He doesn’t consider himself rich. Rich people, he says, have their own Lear jets. ---
**Author:** ![justrob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@justrob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justrob)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/295 "2011-09-15T16:53:59Z")
[QUOTE=Malthus] Once again, I am forcefully reminded about how much real estate costs vary. In Toronto and within a day’s drive of Toronto, you couldn’t buy a free-standing house for $130K, probably not even a dog-house, much less a “nice house”. [/QUOTE] I’m sure it’s not “nice” but it’s a [detached house](http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=10216705&PidKey=1329395757)less than an hour from Toronto. ---
**Author:** ![justrob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@justrob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justrob)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/296 "2011-09-15T16:56:39Z")
Sorry, double post ---
**Author:** ![justrob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@justrob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justrob)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/297 "2011-09-15T16:59:24Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > If you prefer, move the 401k contributions to the expenses list. Six of one, half dozen of other. I’m confused by how you don’t see that saving is **not** an expense. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/298 "2011-09-15T17:18:10Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Am I right in saying that by quadrupling your income, your life is incrementally better, but in a broad sense, you still have all the same problems you had before? In a broad sense, someone earning $200K/year is living the same kind of life as someone earning $50K/year. In a broad sense, someone “rich” is living a VASTLY different kind of life than someone who is earning $50K/year or $200K/year. “Rich” is qualitatively different from “not rich”. You don’t even see the “rich” people. They don’t have many points of contact with you. You don’t shop in same stores. You don’t fly in the same plane. You don’t go to the same movie theater. You don’t eat in the same restaurants, and if you do, not in the same room. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/299 "2011-09-15T17:20:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, and this is just absurd:If you’re living the same lifestyle now as when you were making 50k a year, then where’s all this extra spending coming from? See the “bacon” post above. Maybe that will explain it to you. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110/300 "2011-09-15T17:21:55Z")
So what you’re saying is that they have access to nicer, better, more expensive stuff than you do. Huh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/200k-year-isnt-rich-why-arent-we-taxing-corporations/596110.md?page=16)