there has to be a middle ground…what you’re suggesting is not it.
This is kind of a hijack (or is it back on topic after a multi-page hijack, I’m not sure), but:
I offer $1,000, cash, to the first person who will do my taxes next April so that I pay no federal taxes for 2011. I expect I’ll have earned something between 18 and 22 thousand this year, which puts me firmly in the bottom 1/3rd of the population. If half the population are paying no taxes, I should most definitely have a piece of that action.
And here we have it.
“Unlike poor people, I’m entitled to retain my money and spend it unwisely. Those poor people need to fuck right off and pay more taxes!”
good luck…when i made 22k i still paid taxes…
i don’t know who these people are that make up the large percentage of people who don’t pay federal tax.
Meh? I’m all for progressive taxation.
I do not consider spending money on a house, a car and children “unwise”.
I simply point out that the scenario as presented is unrealistic.
I dunno where your anger is from, but it is misplaced, and your paraphrase is inaccurate.
It is a lie that half the country doesn’t pay taxes. Even if people don’t pay federal income tax they still almost certainly pay local taxes and everyone pays sales tax. Republicans have done a great job of framing the debate as the hard workers vs. the slackers when the discussion should be, what is a fair amount for people to contribute to the overall general well being of society?
Part of the problem facing the country is that there is clearly a group of affluent Americans who do simply do not feel an obligation to our society. They pay lip service to patriotism, but are unwilling to take any steps to actually support the nation that in any way inconveniences them.
And I concur. Someone who is truly rich doesn’t need to schlep a laptop bag across the country in constant fear of billing enough hours or closing enough deals to make “partner”.
The inherent irony of wealth is that unless you already start out with it, most people will never be able to aquire enough wealth that they can simply stop working and enjoy the rest of their lives, in the style they’ve become acustomed to, until they are old enough to retire.
Malthus, I apologize for not being clearer that wasn’t really directed at you personally.
But I’m never gonna understand how spending $200K on a bigger house and a better car and tae kwon do lessons instead of investing it in securing your financial future is totally understandable and fine, but people getting by on $50K are irresponsible if they do the same thing on a much smaller scale.
Wrong, it has everything to do with progressive taxation. The Republicans play this “not rich” game so they can claim that the Democrats want to increase taxes on the middle class. The only way that rhetoric works is if you can define high wage earners (>$360,000) as middle class since that’s the tax bracket we are talking about.
Earlier in the thread you said that the difference between these high earners and those earning average wages is the ease of meeting burdens. Which is exactly why they are also able to meet the increased tax burdens of a progressive tax. Unless you advocate increasing the burdens for the average and below average earners and crushing them instead?
What makes you think people who make that kind of money don’t have those concerns? Are you aware of the efforts people go to in Manhattan to send their kids to the “right” pre-school? These are people who are investment bank MDs, and hedge fund guys. People who are unquestionable rich.
The guy committed professional suicide to get his kids into a pre-school. What is it that make you think “middle-class concerns” don’t apply to really rich people? Those concerns are things everyone has. As you said, its all about the ease of meeting them. It’s also about the choices have. Even if you’re not be able to send your kids to Sidwell or Andover, the chance that they will end up at a failing school is basically zero. Someone making 50k or less cannot say that. That’s why is pretty fair to call someone in your position rich. While you may not be able to afford the best, you can afford to not have to accept the worst, or even anything close to it. A person making 200k+ per year can afford choice and competence. By that I mean that a person will likely have many choices in every aspect of their decision making, and that most of the actors in their lives will be competent. They will have several neighborhoods to choose to live in, several well regarded doctors to choose from, and several well-stocked grocery stores in the area. That sort of thing is what is important.
Then don’t own a house! Half the population is living, dying, laughing, loving, and raising families on $50k. If you can’t figure out how to make that happen for yourself, then there’s some lack of creativity on your part, and if you choose to not make that happen, well, then, that’s a luxury that you can afford.
Home ownership seems to be a big sticking point in this debate, but unless lower incomes (and thus median income) scale with property values in a given location, then expensive real estate only outlines more clearly the wealth of those who can afford it and those who cannot.
(Yes, there are taxes. For ease of numbers I figured it’s not worth discussing them, as what they are exactly varies depending on who/where you are, and since, as you rightly point out, the details of this income line we’re talking about are a bit arbitrary anyway).
Again, choices. What if you lived that way for a few years, then you’ve got a million bucks ready to work for you, and a long life ahead!
I mean, yes, I agree with you; expenses generally scale up as our income increases, but those expenses are all optional. Note, I don’t think they’re inherently wrong, or extravagant, or anything like that, but they are voluntary and unnecessary (in the most denotative sense of the word).
Sure it’s easy. Give me your income next year, and I’ll put away $100,000 towards retirement in just one year!
Maybe I wasn’t clear. I agree completely. It’s abundantly obvious. I just also think that the difference between the ‘high-end wage-slave’ and the bottom 50% of the population is also obvious.
I’d be amazed if someone earning $50,000 in my city who has a family to support could afford to save much of anything, other than an emergency stash. I certainly didn’y, when I was earning that much.
I certainly save money. I aim to save around 30% of my net-of-taxes pay. That doesn’t include mortgage payments (if they are included, the savings rate goes up to around 60%). No-one earning $50K could possibly do that, unless they lived in a cardboard box.
On the other hand, it is quite literally impossible for someone earning $200K gross to save $150K. It can’t be done. First, taxes account for some 30% of that $200K, meaning the net is only 140K.
I already said I’m in favour of progressive taxation. I’m simply arguing that the proposed definition of “rich” is objectively inaccurate.
Of course, if it is being put forward not because it is accurate but to make a political point, there is nothing more to be said.
Obviously the truly rich are concerned about their kids - everyone is. The point is that they are not concerned financially. Note that your own article points out that mere money was not enough to secure the privilege these guys sought.
Edited to respond to the questions/comments directed at me. First, I don’t pretend I’m a working stiff, I see myself as a white-collar professional. I recently took my first position with a for profit after about 15 years working for not for profits, it’s the same kind of work, but a different employer.
I absolutely was not complaining, or trying not to. My point is that my life isn’t that different in day to day details from what people picture as a typical middle class American life. The word rich conjures up yachts and indoor pools and top hats, monacles, etc.
I live in the Petworth neighborhood of DC, it has really changed in the 7ish years since we moved in and has recently ‘gentrified.’
In general, I think America is becoming a third world nation and I say that as someone who has lived for years in the third world. When you say third world, people picture chickens in the street and open sewers, but more than that, the third world is a state of mind. It is a place where there are those with and those without and no in between. That is what the Republicans have turned us into, a wall has gone up and if you are on the wrong side of that wall, you are totally screwed and if you are on the right side of that wall, but just barely, you live in terror of any slippage. That’s were I feel that my wife and I are; on the right side of the wall, but just on the right side of it. I’d also like to tear down that wall and re-establish some social mobility in America.
A friend of mine calls it Citizenship Plus, where the affluent can pay a little extra to enjoy the things that used to be available to all, but now, because the Republican party has convinced white working poor that a) they are in fact middle class; b) they will some day be rich, and thus must maintain privledges for the rich; and c) that government is always bad and therefore taxes to support government are bad; we no longer support a functional government, fulfilling their prophecy that government is bad.
You are correct that we have some savings and can raise money for an emergency if need be, that is what middle class is, the ability to have some property plus a nest egg for a rainy day. The fact that there are people who can’t do that, doesn’t mean I’m not middle class, it means that they are not middle class and the fact that the vast majority of America doesn’t fit into that category means that our society is fundamentally broken.
The answer to get out of our current state of affairs isn’t more of the same. It is not more deregulation and more tax cuts. That is why we live with shit in our water and disfunctional institutions. Meanwhile, smug white racists say things like “why do you chose to live somewhere with shit in your water and disfunctional institutions?” Well you know what, since that piece of shit Ronald Reagan, the Republicans have been chipping away at the base of America and every year they get a little higher up, that’s why we make more than $200k and still feel middle class, because it is pretty clear that very soon in America there will be the smug rich fucks and the screwed and I’m desperately trying to make sure I’m not one of the screwed.
I’m a Democrat because I’d like to see the rest of my countrymen also not be screwed.
I’d suggest that a definition of “rich” that included perforce everyone who owns their own house and car demonstrates that whoever is proposing it is pushing that definition lower than common sense would allow.
Things such as home ownership and car ownership used to be the indicia seperating the middle class from the lower class. If they are now “luxuries” that only the “rich” can afford …
When you demand that someone earning 200K save 150K, “mere details” such as taxes matter. 
Well, yeah. But the “high-end wage-slave” isn’t “rich”.
Because you can’t take any of it with you when you die, but you can enjoy the big house, car and karate right now.
What, exactly, don’t you believe.
I agree. I think that if I lived as I did when I earned $14K, I would be able to save hella money… But I live badly. I admit it.
My heart surgeon friend and her husband are in the $500K+ earning catagory, and they can afford all the stuff I can’t- she got a Jag (paid off same year) and they spent two months in Europe when she went private and got a ‘real’ job- what he’d had for a decade… They have a full time nanny, etc… and they bitch about taxes.
So yeah, it IS to me a ‘look at all the things I cannot do’ sort of comparison situation. I am not arguing that. I certainly live quite a bit more freely, with more luxuries, and haven’t eaten a bag of corn nuts for dinner (or skipped one) because I didn’t have money to buy anything else for quite a long time.
I agree that the base argument, which is tax the high earners, is to me, correct. I think we should probably tax the higher earners, including corporations. However, I also don’t fucking understand economics AT ALL, and can’t even manage my own money for shit. So I am not the one to look at. If it was a flat tax or a start taxing at $250K, I would likely still spend everything I had, based on my income.
A long time ago I was visiting a friend and his wife that lived way out in Indiana. They shit themselves when I told them the rent on by 1BR in Manhattan’s East Village was more than the mortgage for their entire house.
This, especially the bit about the ‘working poor’ thinking they are middle class, is a wonderful example of something I have never quite been able to phrase. I love this post.
Thank you.