# Debt ceiling: why are the pubbies pissed? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 3, 2012, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809 "2012-12-03T00:55:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/281 "2012-12-13T07:14:09Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Yes, I know that. Cool, I just thought that might have been at the center of the confusion and miscommunication in the thread. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/282 "2012-12-13T07:21:01Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Cool, I just thought that might have been at the center of the confusion and miscommunication in the thread. Naw, that’s people assuming they know more about my finances than I do. And attempting to change the subject as well. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/283 "2012-12-13T08:49:41Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Naw, that’s people assuming they know more about my finances than I do. And attempting to change the subject as well. No, actually, it’s people catching you lying about how much you pay in taxes. If someone claims their $30k job causes them a $20k+ tax burden because their husband makes a lot of money, **they are full of shit**. Feel free to provide specific examples of salaries which could cause this to happen in order to prove us wrong. You can’t, because you have no idea what you’re talking about. The reason your grossly misinformed impression of how much you pay in taxes is relevant to this conversation is that it illustrates that you’re making large proclamations about what people should do and how budgets should be balanced without a reasonable understanding of your own simple finances. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/284 "2012-12-13T09:36:28Z")
I’ll help you out, **curly**. No need to get specific with **your** actual salaries. You just have to come up with plausible numbers that _could_ cause that to happen. Here’s an example. Let’s imagine you made the claim, “my husband and I had a 30% effective federal income tax rate last year” and a bunch of imbeciles such as myself say “bullshit, that’s impossible.” You’d very easily be able to prove the imbeciles wrong about that being impossible by coming up with hypothetical salaries which produce this rate. For example, let’s say a man made $600k and his wife made $20k. They’d have paid 10% on the first $17400, 15% on the next amount up to $70700, 25% on the next amount up to $142700, 28% on the next amount up to $217450, 33% on the next amount up to $388,350, and 35% on the rest, for a total of $1740 + $7995 + $18k + $20930 + $56397 + $81077.15, which is a grand total of $186139.15, for an effective tax rate of 30.02%. Easy peasy: it **is** possible to have an effective tax rate of 30%. Now all you have to do is demonstrate that it is **possible** to have an increase in salary of $30k lead to an additional $20k tax burden, which of course implies a marginal rate of 66%\*. You can’t do this, of course, because you are hopelessly full of shit and don’t even realize how impossible your claims are. If you could come up with hypothetical numbers like this which would give any sort of plausibility to your fictional, complete lie, bullshit story about having your $30k salary lead to an additional $20k in taxes, I would feel very foolish. But you can’t, because they don’t exist. - note that someone else already pointed this out, to which you responded “Are you including the +/- 100K my husband makes?” This makes me laugh. You obviously do not understand marginal tax rates, and yet you rail about the injustice of it all. It’s no wonder you’re upset about high taxes: you’re so goddamned misinformed about them, you think you’re paying a 66% effective rate. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/285 "2012-12-13T10:54:50Z")
> [@spinky](#): > > It’s no wonder you’re upset about high taxes: you’re so goddamned misinformed about them, you think you’re paying a 66% effective rate. Well, if she is, the proposed top rate of 39.6% would be a godsend. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/286 "2012-12-13T13:00:17Z")
I am struggling (but not too hard) to unpack the idea that somehow politics stands in the way of fairly distributing costs and benefits across a population. Figuring out how to allocate burdens and benefits and then doing it is what politics _is_. So perhaps the claim is that the problem isn’t politics itself but electoral politics that holds us back from ideal outcomes. Ok, well we can get rid of the representatives or we can get rid of the electorate. If we get rid of the representatives we either have direct democracy and all of its insane pathologies or we have a dictator. Benevolent dictatorship has some great formal properties, but it takes a big risk and violates most of our senses of fairness. If we get rid of the electorate, well, that’s kind of tough to do. Electoral competition is what produces so many of our good governmental outcomes and we agree that representation is more or less fair. It’s not what’s holding us back, it’s what is supporting so many of the good things we have. But it is not without its limits, hence politics is the “art of the possible.” ---
**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:** [December 13, 2012, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/287 "2012-12-13T15:12:26Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > I thank you for all of the information you provided. You’re welcome and I hope it helps. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/288 "2012-12-13T17:54:19Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Go grab your Social Security statement. Did you pay in more than you got out of it? No? Then yes, it’s a welfare program. I got my social security statement. I’ve paid in over 100K and I haven’t gotten a dime out of it yet. And since that money was paid in over a 40 year period if I had thrown it in a savings account it would be worth a LOT more today. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/289 "2012-12-13T18:39:00Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I got my social security statement. I’ve paid in over 100K and I haven’t gotten a dime out of it yet. And since that money was paid in over a 40 year period if I had thrown it in a savings account it would be worth a LOT more today. How much have you paid in homeowners and car insurance over those 40 years, and how much have you got out of those costs? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/290 "2012-12-13T18:51:30Z")
[QUOTE=Ann Hedonia] I got my social security statement. I’ve paid in over 100K and I haven’t gotten a dime out of it yet. And since that money was paid in over a 40 year period if I had thrown it in a savings account it would be worth a LOT more today. [/QUOTE] I’m not really sure what you’re getting at here, but I’ll assume you were agreeing with me. Social Security is a transfer payment system, just like unemployment benefits, the VA medical system, Medicare, Medicaid, _et al._ > [@curlcoat](#): > > I have paid in a LOT more than I have received and since I am on SSDI I may not get back everything I paid in. Uh, what? You will get back _more_ being on SSDI than you ever would have had you worked until 65. And guess what? That’s _fine_. At least, it’s fine by me. You happen to be one of the people benefiting from the system. Nobody should begrudge you that, but it’s fucking welfare. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/291 "2012-12-13T19:10:05Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > I have paid in a LOT more than I have received and since I am on SSDI I may not get back everything I paid in. And your work was paying you $30 grand a year? How big are your SSDI checks, $25 a month? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/292 "2012-12-13T19:20:47Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Are you including the +/- 100K my husband makes? Also, I’m talking gross income. Wait, your husband makes +/ **-** 100K? As in “plus **OR** minus” 100K? Gosh, for both of your sakes, I hope it’s actually +100K. 'Cos if it’s -100K, he REALLY needs to find a new job. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/293 "2012-12-13T19:28:24Z")
Missed the edit window: I wonder if you actually meant to write 100K +/-… ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/294 "2012-12-14T07:04:10Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Uh, what? You will get back _more_ being on SSDI than you ever would have had you worked until 65. Uh, no. I get less per month - about half - than I would have had I made it to 67, which appears to be the current retirement age. It isn’t likely I will make it to 70, so at half payments I most likely will not use up all I paid in. > [@](#): > > Nobody should begrudge you that, but it’s fucking welfare. So you have decided that pension plans are welfare? > [@Ravenman](#): > > And your work was paying you $30 grand a year? How big are your SSDI checks, $25 a month? What are you on about? I worked for decades, sometimes more than one job. > [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Missed the edit window: I wonder if you actually meant to write 100K +/-… I meant to write more or less 100K - apparently I got the images wrong. And yes, I’m ignoring you all who want to pull me into discussing my finances in detail. I gave you the numbers and I really don’t care whether or not you believe it, tho I will point out that you idiots keep forgetting that we pay federal and state income tax. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/295 "2012-12-14T07:58:39Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > And yes, I’m ignoring you all who want to pull me into discussing my finances in detail. I gave you the numbers and I really don’t care whether or not you believe it, tho I will point out that you idiots keep forgetting that we pay federal and state income tax. Nobody asked you to provide specific details, just plausible hypothetical numbers. You can’t. And I’m not forgetting state income tax – counting that, it’s still not true that adding $30k to your combined incomes adds more than $20k in tax burden. You’re full of shit. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/296 "2012-12-14T18:31:15Z")
~100k works. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/297 "2012-12-15T00:20:19Z")
> [@spinky](#): > > Nobody asked you to provide specific details, just plausible hypothetical numbers. You can’t. And I’m not forgetting state income tax – counting that, it’s still not true that adding $30k to your combined incomes adds more than $20k in tax burden. You’re full of shit. I would have to go dig up all of the tax tables and crap to figure it out and since I don’t care enough about you to even look for my specific numbers it ain’t happening. You want to believe I’m full of shit, great. I think you are too. > [@gamerunknown](#): > > ~100k works. Oh yeah - thanks! Funny tho, in the post it looks like - 100K. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/298 "2012-12-15T07:20:33Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > I would have to go dig up all of the tax tables and crap to figure it out and since I don’t care enough about you to even look for my specific numbers it ain’t happening. You want to believe I’m full of shit, great. I think you are too. Since you’re obviously realizing that your story will not hold up to scrutiny, I wonder if it has dawned on you that your beliefs about taxes and fairness are based on bad facts and thus should be re-evaluated. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/299 "2012-12-15T07:25:52Z")
> [@spinky](#): > > Since you’re obviously realizing that your story will not hold up to scrutiny, I wonder if it has dawned on you that your beliefs about taxes and fairness are based on bad facts and thus should be re-evaluated. You idiot. The whole reason this started is because I asked a question. Out of all the numb nuts who responded, only one or two gave useful information and answered my subsequent questions. It’s pretty obvious that very little here would fix any “bad facts” I might have. As for my “story” not holding up to scrutiny - snort. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809/300 "2012-12-15T14:54:36Z")
The " I just got a raise but it put me in a higher tax bracket so now I take home less money"meme is pretty common, it’s been around for years but it just isn’t true, it’s frankly impossible and people that believe it don’t understand how marginal taxes rates work. People that claim it has happened to them are liars. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-ceiling-why-are-the-pubbies-pissed/642809.md?page=16)