It would be a lot easier to believe that if it weren’t for the conservatives I know. The ones who complain that they didn’t get a cost-of-living increase in their social security checks because the Consumer Price Index used to calculate such an increase didn’t go up. The ones who give away their money and sign over deeds to their children so that Medicaid ( the program for poor people) will pay the bills for any nursing home or home care needed later and then complain that their taxes are paying for others to do the same thing. And my favorites, the state government employees who are livid that their proposed contract has no raises for five years and no guaranteed layoff protection but still want no tax increases and presumably want smaller government everywhere except in the agency where they are employed.
About 2/3 of Senators are millionaires (2009 article) and considering that they earn $174k as senators they’d only have to earn $76k from other sources to put them over the $250k. Approximately 44% of representatives are millionaires (another 2009 article) and they have the same salary. Many of the richest are Democrats who are pro extending the tax cuts, but I think- as with slavery 150 years ago- the number of elected officials who would be personally affected by the legislation is probably more than coincidental to the number opposed to it.
My income’s nowhere near 6 figures. I have a brother who’s income is well over $250k and he’s very pro ending the Bush tax cuts; I have a sister who’s probably not that well off in income but is a moderate millionaire in property and holdings and thinks Obama is the anti-Christ and all taxes should go.
Starving Artist, let me ask you to clarify your position.
Given:
[ul]
[li]The current definition of “rich” as being people who make $250,000 a year or more.[/li][li]The current tax rates on the top wage earners vs the rates prior to the Bush tax cuts.[/li][/ul]
What would you say is the ideal:
[ul]
[li]Cutoff income level defining “rich”.[/li][li]Tax rate on same.[/li][/ul]
?
And this is where the conservative meme always falls down for me, this flat-out statement that poor people are poor because of faults in themselves: they’re either stupid or lazy.
I’ve worked in a number of industries, and in every single one of them, the supposed relationship above is reversed: the poorer folks are, the harder they work, and the more personal drive (and general honesty) they have. I’ve met multi-million dollar CEOs that I’m surprised can manage to put on their pants correctly, and minimum-wage technicians holding down two or three jobs to try and better themselves. It’s simply not possible that the highest ends of the spectrum are there because of some multiplier of drive, discipline or willingness to take risks – in the case of my former company’s CEO, for example, he’d have to be working 36,519 full time jobs for simple effort to do it – and it sure wasn’t because he was intelligent, insightful, or even successful at running the company.
In every endeavor, people consistently and overwhelmingly underestimate the effects of simple chance, and I’m pretty sure you’re doing it now. Studies don’t show particularly strong correlations of wealth with any of the things you mention. Most things in science, nature and society fall into a nice bell curve just by chance: why wouldn’t opportunities for wealth do the same?
(And to the OP: some years yes, some years no).
The problem I have with that sort of thinking is that it gives people an excuse to just be stupid or lazy while minimizing the efforts of people who actually do work hard to get where they are. If a person would rather party and drink than study in high school, decides college “isn’t for them”, doesn’t go after those promotions at work, doesn’t put in extra hours, procrastinates in getting the proper credentials, is that all “bad luck”?
While I would agree that many of the upper echelon are not as smart as some of their underlings, there is an element missing to why some people are rich and others aren’t. Most of the people I know who are in that bracket studied something in college that wasn’t particularly fun. I am a financial planner and my wife is an economist. I would much rather have studied anthropology or philosophy, but I had a child when I was twenty and knew I would need a job.
Your odds of success are greatly improved if you decide to enter a career path that is likely to lead to financial success. Most of these paths involve crap like accounting. Even accountants don’t usually value accounting as the highest passion of their life. Many of the people who are at lower levels of the organizatioin I work for started out with a useless degree and spent several years ‘finding themselves’ before started at the bottom of the ladder with no credentials.
I sympathize because without the impetus of a child to care for I am sure I would have done the same. Those choices do have a long term impact however, and part of the price you pay for taking really cool college classes is not earning as much over your lifetime.
It is interesting becaue I work as a financial planner for high net worth, but not ridiculously wealthy, individuals. The dominant professions are engineers, operations analysts (whatever those are exactly), attorneys, doctors and scientists. Almost all were very goal oriented at a young age and made early choices that led to their success.
I don’t particularly feel undertaxed. I write a bill that is about the average income for a household of four every year and I don’t use much more in resources than other households in my state. I will pay more as I have the means, but at a certain point I am paying for other peoples’ sub-optimal choices. I certainly resent paying for several wars, the support of corporate farmers, and an increasingly grotesque security apparatus. If I am to be taxed I would certainly rather it go to a true safety net and health care than some other things.
That’s right, and you weren’t the one talking about the cost of real estate in the city where you choose to live, were you? So my comments weren’t addressed to you and yet you’re the only one who’s taken umbrage at them in your zealous need to paint people in the top 2% of earners as victims of some conspiracy to rob them of their wealth.
If you earn more than 98% of Americans you may not be “rich” but you’re sure as hell not poor and by definition, you’re not in the middle class. The middle is somewhere decidedly below the top 2%. Now, there is no question that being in the 98th earning percentile puts you significantly below the people in the 99.999th percentile. But that doesn’t change the fact that it also puts you well above the 50th.
And the whole redistribution of wealth meme is old and tired. Every taxpayer’s money is redistributed and plenty of it goes to the benefit of people who are wealthier than the average, and plenty goes to the benefit of people who are poorer than the average.
But while you flail at the idea that people earning 6x the average family might pay an extra 4.5% in taxes, I’ve never once heard you say a word about the enormous loopholes that are killing us by allowing corporations that are earning billions to not only not pay a penny of tax, but to receive tax refunds.
While you’re decrying the redistribution of wealth where are your complaints that those of us in the lowest 98% and those of us in the lowest 50% and those of us in the lowest 25% are having our wealth redistributed to the likes of Verizon, which earned $6 billion in profits in 2009 somehow not only paid no federal tax, but got a $1.6 billion refund. Or ExxonMobil, $19 billion in profits, $156 million in refund. Or our bailout buddies, Goldman Sachs, who pay an effective tax rate of 1.1%. A secretary at Goldman Sachs pays a higher rate of tax than the company itself.
And you don’t say a damned word about that. Hypocrisy at its finest.
You can complain about me and my “ilk” all you want. I put my money where my mouth is. I pay my taxes, and if they have to go up to balance the budget, then I’ll keep on paying them gladly, because I want the benefits that we all reap from taxes. Access to healthcare, an FDA that one day may be able to deal with a massive salmonella issue in less than five months. Robust, powerful schools that are turning out kids who can do more in a high tech world than update their Facebook status, safe and clean air and water, roads that don’t break suspensions, libraries, law enforcement and a military that can protect us from real threats.
And the only way to have those things is to pay taxes. It’s called being a part of a society that sustains itself.
Your odds of success are greatly improved if you have sufficient education to have a career path to begin with. Your odds of having that education are greatly improved if you’re born to the right parents in the right community. Your odds of having those parents are greatly improved if your grandparents are middle income earners. Also? If they’re white. That’s just statistically true; to pretend that’s all down to hard work and right choices is to be completely ignorant of hard and uncomfortable but very real facts.
Laziness, no. Yes, being born stupid is bad luck. You’re seriously claiming that stupidity is a choice?
And here’s the fundamental difference in our attitudes: You seem to feel that a large majority of people who aren’t successful are unsuccessful because of laziness (and vice versa), and that therefore it’s unfair to offer help to them.
I feel that a personal ability and “drive” have only a relatively minor effect on success, and that the vast majority of successes and failures in life are due primarily to chance (including being born with innate intelligence or stupidity), and that “punishing” those who are unsuccessful is just increasing the unfairness. And that the cost to carry the occasional truly lazy person at a crappy, sub-poverty lifestyle, isn’t a big deal anyway. All we’re really looking for in terms of safety nets is universal health care (which every other developed nation on Earth seems to provide without issue) and enough income to maintain life, food, and basic shelter – we’re not buying yachts for these folks.
Or, as the old adage goes: Democrats believe the government should help those who can’t help themselves. Republicans believe that those who can’t help themselves should help themselves.
I’d be willing to support a system where we (magically) accurately measure “how hard people are working to get ahead,” (measuring against their (also magically determined) individual capability, to eliminate luck of birth) and we distribute wealth proportionately. Under your claim, as I understand it, this would result in nothing much changing, while I strongly suspect most of the currently wealthy would not like the results of such a system. I know a lot of very poor people who would own private islands under such a plan.
Before retirement I made what I thought was excellent money as an engineering consultant, but still did not attain $250,000. Yet, naturally thrifty, I felt “rich” enough for my satisfaction and in fact, though just living off savings, still do.
But regardless of whether $250,000 is enough to be “rich” or not, posters in this thread are ignoring a key point: People making only $250,000 are NOT the people one speaks of when one speaks of "Taxing the Rich."
The top bracket in the present tax rates begins at “Over $379,150” for all statuses except Married Filing Separate. That’s adjusted income; let’s round it up to a mere $400,000 to reflect gross income.
Congressmen who want to raise the marginal rate on the top bracket would not increase taxes on anyone making less than $400,000. If you make $500,000, only $100,000 would be taxed at the higher top rate.
The way that the Koch Brothers, etc. have confused highish-income middle-class Americans into thinking that “class warfare” is directed against them will make a good supplement to Goebbels’ work when a text on The Big Lie is published.
Another case in point is “the Death Tax” (which was never really an added tax at all, but rather a way to close the loophole that capital gains become untaxable after death); repeal of the “Death Tax” was irrelevant to all but the super-rich, yet deluded taxpayers think that right-wing Congressmen did them a big favor.
Soon the family income will be approaching the $250,000 mark. And eventually it will surpass that. Up to now we haven’t been close to that mark but our attitude has been that everyone should pay the same percentage of their income in taxes. It just is inconceivable why the rich should pay more than their fair share. And by fair share I mean say 15% of income. Like the guy making $12,000 a year should pay 15%.
The rich make more, but that is great for them and they should not suffer for it. I never felt this way because someday I might just get there. Its just that fair is fair.
Its like extra taxes for the tall or the cute. Crazy.
My wife and I together top 250K by a comfortable margin. We are both in favor of a higher tax rate on our income bracket, especially if said tax increase would come with a decent universal healthcare system.
I suppose I know several people who probably make more than 250K, but not well enough to talk to them about money or politics.
I think by any reasonable definition of the term we are “rich.” Not own-your-own-jet-rich, of course, not professional-athlete-rich, but I think it’s silly to stretch the definition of “middle class” to the point that it covers the top several percent of household incomes.
My dad had a pretty good union job; my mom had a mid-level management job in a non-profit. They rehabbed houses and sold real estate on the side. They were careful with money and put four boys through school, two of them through college. Once in a while we took family vacations to places within driving distance. They’re middle class. As much as I still identify with middle class sensibilities, I am virtually 100% certain that my dad would look at my tax return and say, “Shit, you’re rich.”
Here in Silicon Valley, just about all my professional acquaintances have family incomes $200K+ and $250K is not considered an outlier. Of course, everything in the area is priced higher too, from housing to education to eating out.
Being against government is an honest, if misguided, reason for opposing higher taxes for the wealthy. However, the arguments on this go far beyond that, and assume that a slight raise in taxes for the rich would have all sorts of impacts, such as reducing risk taking, ambition, etc. I think pretty much who is in that situation knows this is garbage. I’m close enough that I do. If I were offered a promotion or a new job which would put us beyond this limit, a higher bracket would have zero impact on my decision. If my wife got offered an advance that would put us beyond $250K, no way higher taxes would keep her from signing the contract.
I can’t hang with this crowd. At our best, before kids, we might have cleared $160k. With the wife working part time, we make about $120k.
What gets me is (aside from two additional mouths to feed), how little ground that covers anymore. I haven’t had a raise in 12 years, I have had 2 or 3 COLAs in that time. I’m finding I have to be extremely frugal in how things get repaired around the house (doing it myself), to make ends meet.
Little things like more expensive gas, more expensive insurance, more expensive food, more expensive daycare…We’re not starving, and we’re relatively comfortable, but we didn’t go a year with broken A/C for the helluvit, and the tires on the daily driver should have been replaced two months ago.
It lately seems like we’ve got more $400 bills than we have income to handle it.
There are wonderful upsides to it. My job is relatively low stress. My wife’s part time professional job lets her be home quite a bit. It’s great being HOME around the kids as they grow up (which may change when they’re older and have lives of their own, but for now? I’ll put in my 40, and answer my email into the night)
And grouse that my money just isn’t going as far as it used to. Would I pay more taxes? Sure. I think we need it. But I ALSO think we need to stop sending metric buttloads of cash overseas in the form of gunpowder, and I think we need to stop spending money we don’t have.
You must be in a ritzy neighborhood, since my income, not quite $250K, is quite a bit above almost of of my kids’ friends parents. I don’t know about private schools, but my property taxes are quite low, thanks to Prop 13, and the restaurants around me are quite affordable. I did get into the housing market at a good time. I was able to fully pay for college for both my kids - one private, one public but out of state without loans, save tons, and have a nice amount set aside for retirement. True, I don’t see the need to buy a new BMW every year, but I wouldn’t do that no matter how much I made. My daddy taught me too well for that kind of nonsense.
I know plenty of people that make at that much or more; colleagues, clients, and friends. Oddly enough almost all of them have no objections to their current taxes in the United States. I am not sure if this is because I hang with an extremely liberal crowd or because most of them are very, well aware of how much higher their taxes would be in Western Europe.
Most years? No. My salary is well under that, though still in the 6 digits. A few years I’ve gone over that due to stock sales, and last year I went way over that. Way over double that, actually. But it won’t happen again.
I certainly don’t consider myself rich. I live in a high cost of living area, and have a very modest 2-bed condo.
My problem with “soak the rich” proposals is that people like me are already paying an enormous percentage of our income. People that make less pay a lower percentage–ok, fine–but people that make more also pay a lower percentage. William Buffett paid 17.7% of his income to the Feds. I paid ~35%, and then another ~10% to the state.
Fix the system so that people making most of their money from investment income pay a rate similar to my own, and I won’t complain so loudly. I’m not using this money to buy Porches. It’s so I don’t have to retire in poverty.
Our household is over $250k, as is the majority of our friends. I am paying for private school and pricey housing in Orange County, CA - so I would not claim that my relative lifestyle reflects our relative income as some might assume.
As for taxes, I have no problem with re-thinking the tax code. However - quit telling me that you want things but you want me to pay for them. I will accept an across the board increase in Federal taxes on EVERYONE if that reduces our nation’s deficit and debt. I have watched as California has tried to balance its books on the rich, and failed - because the income of the rich fluctuates so much. I want everyone thinking about government spending and how it impacts THEM PERSONALLY.
Make EVERYONE pay an additional 1% income tax, no deduction. This is only for retiring debt. Everytime you want to increase spending, tell America how much that 1% will increase. You want to stay in Iraq? Another .25% of your income (pulling numbers from nowhere to make a point).
I have good income, and I am willing to pay more IF YOU WILL JOIN ME. If not, I will put my income to use for my kids, my friends, and those charities that I personally believe in. I will legally shield my income and assets from taxable events, so that more of my money is not wasted. I make enough to hire really good accountants who make sure that I take advantage of every single little hidden loophole in the tax code. Someone else put them in there, so I will chase them down and use them.
I don’t think you’d find too many conservatives who would pass up a promotion even if it put them in a higher tax bracket either. The problem with increases in taxation from the conservative point of view is that, given free rein, it will never stop. Government is always wanting more money, and always seeking to expand, both in its scope and in its reach. I think you’d find far less conservative opposition to a slight or even moderate increase in taxes if there was some believable guarantee that they wouldn’t then be raised even further at some time in the future. But of course that will never happen, so the idea is to resist increased taxation as much as possible simply as a matter of course.
I will have to work for several years to get 250K.
I live in Los Angeles.