# Are the GOP rooting for total economic collapse? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 22, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045 "2011-07-22T23:06:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/121 "2011-07-24T00:07:52Z")
> [@yorick73](#): > > And those people are free to write a check to the Treasury any time they wish. So are the rest of you who feel your taxes are too low. That is one of the stupidest statements about taxation that was ever uttered. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/122 "2011-07-24T00:16:03Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > When the heck did we ever raise taxes under Reagan? [Reagan raised taxes 11 times](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20030729-503544.html). After he cut taxes, he saw that the responsible thing to do was to raise them again. Which is why Saint Ronnie would be cast out of the Republican Party nowadays. Who wants a (relatively) fiscally-responsible leader? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/123 "2011-07-24T00:17:32Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Do the poor laborers consent to the value-split in question? No it was imposed on them by want of food and shelter. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/124 "2011-07-24T00:17:45Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No it isn’t. It’s decided by businesses squeezing the maximum amount of labor in return for the minimum amount of pay and consideration they can give in return. And the workers in general are in no position to just walk away, we’ve made sure of that with “labor discipline”, AKA making sure that there’s always a dearth of jobs and that not having a job is terrifying. And yet some laborers get higher pay than others. Why is that? Guys who fly planes earn more per hour than guys who drive trucks, who earn more per hour than guys who unload trucks; why does each group settle for a different minimum amount of pay, and why do employers agree to pay them differently? Why do auto mechanics earn more per hour than fry cooks? Why do paramedics earn more than cashiers? It’s almost as if – wait, could it really be that simple? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/125 "2011-07-24T00:23:39Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > And yet some laborers get higher pay than others. Why is that? Because for one reason or another a skill set is rare enough that the workers have a little bargaining power, or expensive enough to acquire that if the companies don’t offer more than a certain minimum amount no one will acquire them in the first place because the debt will be too high. Or of course the workers in question are unionized. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/126 "2011-07-24T00:38:43Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > No. I mean seeing someone who tilts towards the left stating that they’d personally be willing to shoulder tax increases instead of wanting to tax the “rich”. Thats what he offered. Left leaning rich folks who say they are willing to pay higher tax rates. > [@](#): > > Not true. It depends on what you think of as wealthy. Capital gains are taxed at 15%. For the average schmo making $50,000, capital gains represents less than 1% of income. For someone making $500,000 (still not “wealthy”), capital gains represent perhaps 10% of income. When you get to $5,000,000, then about half of your income is capital gains. So the guy with $5,000,000 of income pays lower taxes than the guy that only makes $500,000. > [@](#): > > 1.) Even when you take into account Federal, state and local taxes, the rich still have an effective tax rate higher than any other income group. Once again it depends on who you consider rich. > [@](#): > > 2.) The poor and middle class are getting a damn good deal in regards to taxes paid and money received in government spending (Federal, state and local). The tax foundation is another Koch brother’s “think tank” The lowest quintile has a mean income of $11,552 and the highest has a mean income of $170,844. [http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=330](http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=330) Your statistic is government services received compared to taxes paid. In this sense, yes, the poor get more out of the system than they put in and the rich get out less than they put in. But we have not yet figured out how to provide the rich more military protection than the poor (we’ve kinda sorta figured out how to do it with police and teachers but the poor still get more in police protection and education than they pay in taxes). Sure the poor also receive stuff like food stamps and medicaid but how much of government spending do you think is food stamps and welfare? If you go by the examples in the paper, half of government spending is food stamps and welfare. Still the fact remains that the poor receive a lot more from government than they put in. If only there were some way to discourage people from being poor (as in making $1000/month poor)… if only. > [@](#): > > So yes, let’s talk increases 🙂 (or more importantly, spending cuts). Personally I think the top marginal income tax rate rate should slowly move towards 50%. It was good enough fro Reagan for the first 6 years of his presidency, its good enough for me. We could start out by raising it to 39.6 (it was good enough for Clinton, its good enough for me). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/127 "2011-07-24T00:39:48Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > I’m thinking of examples like Indiana steelworkers. They used to be unionized; people could raise their families working in that industry. Now most of them get minimum wage, and some forces would like to do away with minimum wage rules so that they may be paid even less. People in ownership or management positions are paid far, far more than the people who actually produce the steel. But I don’t know how valuable the steel-producing labor is. I know how valuable a heart surgeon’s labor is, because I know how much it costs to replace that guy. I know how valuable a burger-flipper’s labor is, because I know how little it costs to replace that guy. How hard is it to get some guy off the street from “zero” to “doing a steelworker’s job”, and for how little pay would an untrained guy of can’t-see-any-real-difference ability be willing to do it? > [@](#): > > It seems like the pubbies would do anything to create a system where no one has any choice but to work for minimum wage, or less. It’d be tyranny, but they’d claim it was the free market (“minimum wage is all any job pays due to market forces! Nevermind that we own every single company and your choices are minimum wage or starve”) Well, to the precise extent that we’re talking about folks who can’t offer labor more valuable than any other guy off the street, then just how much should we pay the folks in question? Just how valuable is their work if it truly _ **is** _ that indifferently unimpressive? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/128 "2011-07-24T00:46:59Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Of course some people’s labor is more valuable than others. The problem is in how this is decided. It seems some forces want to declare everyone who works for a living to be dumb and unworthy of any reward whatsoever. Nevermind the fact that working people actually make the country function. > > What’s behind my characterization is the notion that the system can be set up in such a way that many people get effectively ripped off. We have a $14 trillion economy. A huge percentage of the wealth generated ends up in the hands of the top 5% or 10% of earners. Does anyone really think the value of labor is as disproportionate as the distribution of wealth? The question of the distribution of the fruits of production between labor and capital has been around for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/129 "2011-07-24T00:48:57Z")
> [@yorick73](#): > > I have no problem with a vote on the matter. Just make sure that only those who will have their taxes increased get a vote. Or are you proposing that the 47% who pay no federal income tax should help decide? Umm the vote was for sales tax. Presumably EVERYONE pays sales tax. As for the federal income taxes, yes, we let everyone decide unless we want to make wealth and income a qualification for voting. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/130 "2011-07-24T00:51:15Z")
> [@yorick73](#): > > And you would be incorrect. I agree with much of your post. I am no fan of crony capitalism. > > I am also in favor saving SS, Medicare and Medicaid. I do think that other welfare programs should be paid for and handled by the states and not from federal grants. That may result in much more focused scrutiny and less abuse. Waste fraud and corruption has historically been much worse at state and local levels than at federal levels. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/131 "2011-07-24T00:55:14Z")
> [@yorick73](#): > > I’m not arguing against the legitimacy of a democratic government to tax in order to pay for the legitimate functioning of government. Taxing in order to redistribute, on the other hand, is a different animal altogether. And how much of our federal budget do you consider redistribution? Social security? Medicare? > [@](#): > > Not one bit. That being said, though, any proposal to tax an individual to give to another should be a decision left to those who pay the tax. Then its not a tax, its a donation. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/132 "2011-07-24T00:57:49Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I think that it speaks to the inherent unfairness of saying that “We need to raise more revenue, so let’s put it on the backs of other people.” Of course I’ll vote for my neighbor paying more taxes if I pay none. It’s class warfare bullshit and the very reason why we need a flat tax (with generous exemptions for living expenses). That way if we are proposing “revenue enhancement” then it is coming out of mine, yours, Warren Buffett’s, and the guy next door’s pocket. > > I drive on the same roads that Bill Gates does. Why should he pay a higher percentage of his income than me? Even Ron Paul believes in a progressive tax system. He has problems with how the money is spent not how the money is collected. Spend less and we will naturally collect less (of course we would have to cut our overall spending in about half before we could lower taxes). ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/133 "2011-07-24T01:00:52Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > But I don’t know how valuable the steel-producing labor is. I know how valuable a heart surgeon’s labor is, because I know how much it costs to replace that guy. I know how valuable a burger-flipper’s labor is, because I know how little it costs to replace that guy. How hard is it to get some guy off the street from “zero” to “doing a steelworker’s job”, and for how little pay would an untrained guy of can’t-see-any-real-difference ability be willing to do it? We’re obviously coming at this from different perspectives. I don’t frankly know how much steelworker labor is worth either. However, I look at it in this way: Say a steel company sees a billion in revenues a year. The company is 10% management, 90% labor. If management reaps 90% of the gains and labor 10%, obviously (to me) things are out of balance. Labor is being under-valued, as these decisions have been concentrated in the hands of a few self-interested parties. A system more like Germany’s is in order in such a case. No matter how much you want to talk about interchangeable worthless workers, it is quite simply never that simple. > [@](#): > > Well, to the precise extent that we’re talking about folks who can’t offer labor more valuable than any other guy off the street, then just how much should we pay the folks in question? Just how valuable is their work if it truly _ **is** _ that indifferently unimpressive? Again our differences seem to come down to how things are framed. Management folks who reap 90% of the gains could far far more easily be interchanged for profit than $10/hour laborers. **Der Trihs** has a point where this example is concerned- ‘labor discipline’ ensures that there are desperate people willing to work for anything, regardless of how much value they actually produce. Do you see what I’m getting at? In one view pay is tied to value produced. In another view it is tied to a race to the bottom, enabled by divide-and-conquer union busting strategies among other things. Management pay somehow seem tied to neither view. Congrats to those guys for figuring out how to siphon all the profits into their own pockets without actually contributing much of anything, though my complaint remains with the injustice of that fact. Hmpf. I’ll have to think about it some more though. It’s true that in my own situation I prospered by figuring out how to be worth more than the other guys. I don’t like the dog-eat-dog aspect of the world one bit, and I believe market forces are manipulated to accentuate that aspect. Nonetheless, that being the reality I felt I had no choice but to eat the other dogs. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/134 "2011-07-24T01:03:06Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Umm the vote was for sales tax. Presumably EVERYONE pays sales tax. > > As for the federal income taxes, yes, we let everyone decide unless we want to make wealth and income a qualification for voting. 2 days ago Rachel Maddow put up a quote from the founder of the Tea Party in favor of limiting the vote to property owners. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/135 "2011-07-24T01:04:41Z")
> [@](#): > > I am also in favor saving SS, Medicare and Medicaid. I do think that other welfare programs Um, SS and Medicare aren’t exactly welfare you know. People pay taxes into those programs their entire lives to get those benefits. The label ‘entitlement program’ is disingenuous in these cases. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/136 "2011-07-24T01:05:51Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > “How this is decided”? It’s decided by people offering their labor to others, and getting whatever price it is worth. If your labor has no value to people, you won’t get paid. There’s no master plan, no evil Svengali deciding to rip off the poor working man. There are only free people voluntarily making deals with each other, trading service for service. > > Of course, some people want more than what they can get through voluntary exchange. So they look to the heavy hand of government to extract more for them from other people than they could otherwise get. That includes rich crony capitalists who bend government to their will, AND it includes working people who vote for politicians who promise to use force to get them more wealth than they can achieve freely. > > Yes, of course it is. China has about 5 times as much labor as the U.S., and it has 1/5 the economy. Why do you think that is, if labor is responsible for all our wealth, or even a large fraction of it? For that matter, why aren’t country GDP’s proportional to the size of the labor force? How can North Korea be so poor, while Hong Kong is so rich? > > The fact is, the rapid increase in wealth in the U.S. was due to capitalism - the ability of capital to flow freely, so that it could accumulate in areas where it does the most good. The wealth of the U.S. is due to the protection of personal property rights, which gives people incentive to work harder, work smarter, and take risks. The wealth of the free world is due in large part to the fact that free markets allow for competition, which spurs massive amounts of innovation. For this to occur, people have to be allowed to keep what they earn, to be rewarded for taking risks, and to be free to make choices. > > Labor in and of itself has no value whatsoever. If you spend half your day digging a hole, and the other half filling it in, you have created nothing of value. What brings value to labor is when it is employed in the creation of things people want and need, and what magnifies its value is capital investment in infrastructure that allows laborers to manipulate technology and communicate and be part of an enterprise that allows them to focus on what they do best. > > **The left never wants to admit that rich people generally get where they are because they have provided more value to others than a laborer has.** A person who invents a new tool that saves an hour of work per week for 100,000 people has created more value than a thousand laborers will in their entire lives. A person who comes up with a corporate structure that lowers costs for groceries and clothing by $100/year for 50 million people has done more for the greater good and provided more GDP growth to society than 100,000 extra laborers would. > > The fact that such people accumulate capital is a _good_ thing. It’s a feature of capitalism that money tends to flow to those who make more productive use of it than others. And that value DOES trickle down to the worker. Why do you think the _poverty line_ in the United States is more than twice the world average income? Why do you think an unskilled laborer in the U.S. can make 10/hr when the same unskilled worker in China makes .50/hr? It’s because the worker in the U.S. benefits from being a part of an infrastructure built through capital investment. His labor is magnified in productivity through the process of rich people trying to get richer by creating more efficient processes and better goods and services. > > Screw with this system at your peril. BOLDING MINE I generally agree that capitalism is a great thing. A decade of capitalism has done for India what 50 years of Mother Theresa was not able to do. Significantly reduce poverty. However the notion that he rich generally “deserve” their wealth is belied by the fact that less than 1/3 of the Forbes 400 are self made millionaires. The majority of them inherited their wealth of businesses. 1/3 is not bad by historic standards, but I think we can do better. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/137 "2011-07-24T01:13:55Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > That’s where the leadership part comes in. Boehner took this office promising that his party would have an “adult conversation” about the budget and the deficit. He hasn’t held one yet, by all appearances, has he? > > And they’re \*not \*bad people, just misguided and irresponsible. Oh, I’m pretty much willing to put the “evil bastid” label on Mitch Kantor. He knows what the stakes are, he clearly does not care what happens to the rest of us so long as he makes political hay. He’s probably one of those functional sociopaths you hear so much about. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/138 "2011-07-24T01:16:01Z")
> [@yorick73](#): > > Please…explain this to me? I’ll give it a try. Here’s one possibility: The huge increase in profits of many companies, which its workers were absolutely essential in generating, is disproportionately being distributed to the executives of the companies, leaving the workers, without whom no profits would be possible, largely in the lurch. Workers have declining adjusted-for-inflation wages and cuts to benefits and pensions, while executives get more of the pie than ever. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/139 "2011-07-24T01:34:07Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Again our differences seem to come down to how things are framed. Management folks who reap 90% of the gains could far far more easily be interchanged for profit than $10/hour laborers. If that were true – if they’re not only interchangeable, but _ **far more easily** _ interchangeable than the $10/hour folks – then why isn’t that happening? If I were the one greedily reaping the profits from such a company, then why _ **wouldn’t** _ I insist on treating my white-collar managers the way I treat my blue-collar laborers? > [@](#): > > Management pay somehow seem tied to neither view. Congrats to those guys for figuring out how to siphon all the profits into their own pockets without actually contributing much of anything, though my complaint remains with the injustice of that fact. I’m not content with that; the alleged injustice hinges on whether those guys are as replaceable as you claim, but you can’t explain _ **why** _ they aren’t treated as if they’re that replaceable. Isn’t the simplest explanation that it ain’t that simple, and they ain’t that replaceable? > [@](#): > > It’s true that in my own situation I prospered by figuring out how to be worth more than the other guys. I don’t like the dog-eat-dog aspect of the world one bit, and I believe market forces are manipulated to accentuate that aspect. Nonetheless, that being the reality I felt I had no choice but to eat the other dogs. And that’s why some folks in commission-based fields consistently do better than others. I’m not sure what the explanation for that would be, either – if it’s not, y’know, the simplest one. ---
**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:** [July 24, 2011, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045/140 "2011-07-24T02:13:26Z")
> [@](#): > > It depends on what you think of as wealthy. Capital gains are taxed at 15%. For the average schmo making $50,000, capital gains represents less than 1% of income. For someone making $500,000 (still not “wealthy”), capital gains represent perhaps 10% of income. When you get to $5,000,000, then about half of your income is capital gains. So the guy with $5,000,000 of income pays lower taxes than the guy that only makes $500,000. While I agree with much of what you say, the above isn’t at all true. One’s income says nothing about where that income came from - I know people making $50k purely by cap. gains (if you live in Arizona or Florida, you probably know a few like that as well) and there are people making $20 million who earn it all as income (for example, movie stars). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-gop-rooting-for-total-economic-collapse/590045.md?page=8)