Using the example of 120k after tax, that is 10k/month for the whole family. Spending 40% of your take home pay on the mortgage seems incredibly stupid to me. So, that is one of the many reasons that fantasy budget where the poor 200k/yr earners cannot afford any increases in taxes is the stupidest thing I have heard in a while.
A few posters in this thread are trying real real hard to convince us that people making 8x more than some of us live pretty much the same and it takes a lot of gall to do so. :rolleyes:
If you can’t see why I shan’t be replying to these, uh, rather inflammatory and insulting statements, then you are, well… I am unable to say those things in this forum.
I would be happy to respond to any actual questions or even commentary, posed politely.
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.
Someone who earns exactly $200K will get not get hit at all. Someone who earns $250K will get hit quite a bit. I consider it a good idea not to reach into other people’s pockets no matter how good your intentions are and no matter how little you think they will miss the money you take.
If a household is making $200,000 per year and they are living paycheck to paycheck, they are living beyond their means. They are irresponsible and don’t deserve government assistance.
This thread is actually pretty amusing. It began with:
…as the fantastic argument for why $200K is not “rich”.
But now you have people genuinely claiming that living on $200K is “pretty much the same” as living on $20K, and saying they don’t have any surplus income for their pension.
Where does the extra money go? Is it that as soon as you walk into walmart all the prices are scaled by income?
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
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.
Tax cuts (specifically the unsustainable Bush tax cuts) are government assistance. And now the Republicans want them extended indefinitely and for them to be the new standard, so repealing those tax cuts are now seen as tantamount to raising taxes.