If a household income above $250,000 is not rich then that word has no meaning. Less that 2% of US households have that level of income.
Personally I hope all of the cuts expire - the Clinton rates were unambiguously effective in promoting economic activity and I have yet to see any evidence that the Bush rates were better.
I am amazed at how skewed people’s perception of what “rich” is.
I’d say being in the top 2% of a country like the US places you pretty squarely in the “rich” category.
YMMV…I am guessing you are in the following crowd:
:rolleyes:
This analysis too.
So they changed the progressive tax structure so that once you cross the $250K in taxable income you pay the highest rate on all your income, not just the part over $250K, right? Otherwise the “is $250K rich” is kind of a disingenuous argument. And they got rid of deductions too, right? Otherwise it might give the wrong impressions to talk about “making $250K” rather than having $250K in taxable income.
Not sure we have seen any concrete documents on exactly how it will all work.
That said unless something seriously changes you only pay the higher rates on money over $250k.
A starting teacher’s salary here is $34k. I’m happy to pay $50k in taxes for a $250,000/yr income.
It is a lot to *most people *because the less than 250k/year folk make is 98%$ of America. Middle and upper class distinctions are all kind of relative, though I wouldn’t call myself “rich” if I made 250k. I’d just have better health care, a nicer house, a nicer car, a better education and nicer shoes.
Whether or not $250,000 a year makes you rich - there’s more to being rich than your salary in the most recent year - it unquestionably puts you among the top earners in the country. That’s what’s relevant here. And tax cuts for that income bracket are an enormous contributor to the deficit the GOP establishment became so interested in once Bush left office. That tax rate is not the only issue that needs to be dealt with, but it is crazy to insist on cutting the deficit while declaring those tax cuts are sacrosanct.
Look up? What part of ‘lazy’ did you not understand? 
Seriously, okay, so say the cuts effect those down to $250K. My subsequent point still stands I think. If you’re making $250K, unless you have a passel of kids and uncontrolled debt, I think there’s a real threshold below which a tax increase should be easily manageable.
I can’t speak for Voyager, but for me, yes, I have to continue to work, for now. Yes, if I needed to, I could take two months off. No, that’s not several, but it’s what I have accrued. Yes, I can go anywhere in the world, and pretty much have at this point, [cough]most of which was work-related [/cough]. I have just about everything I’ve ever wanted. Yes, I have to control my spending to an extent, but to much less an extent than when I was poor and living on Ramen. I do get your point though.
I don’t mean to be contentious, but … you know what? I was going to state that I consider myself upper-middle class and question how you didn’t, but middle class in, say, Oshkosh and middle class in Coral Gables are not the same, in addition to myriad other variables, so the argument I was going to attempt to make doesn’t hold. Never mind.
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
I am amazed at how skewed people’s perception of what “rich” is.
[/QUOTE]
So am I.
Why top 2%? Why not the top 5%? Or the top 10%? Or, hell, the top 49%, since they will be ‘rich’(er) than the bottom 51%? Why the arbitrary 2%? Why is that meaningful? I think that one gets to ‘rich’ when working becomes optional, when they can essentially buy anything they want, when they can arbitrarily decide to take a multi-month vacation to anywhere they want to go without consideration of the costs (in terms of their job or in terms of the money)…to me, those things distinguish someone who is ‘rich’ from someone who is merely ‘wealthy’ or someone who is simply well off. Not what percentage you happen to fall in, income wise.
:rolleyes: yourself. I didn’t do that to you, or make light of the counter opinion, but ok. Do I think you have to reach some arbitrary dollar figure to be ‘rich’? No…I don’t. I already gave my criteria for being considered ‘rich’, by my definition. I acknowledged that this is going to vary from person to person. I think it’s silly to try and stuff people making $250k into the same category as someone making $1 million/hear, or $10 million/year, or $100 million/year. Consider, using the same scale…if we say that some family making $25k/year is middle class, then one order of magnitude difference would be that family making $250k/year…and a second order of magnitude would be that family making $2.5 million/year. Are all those people the same? Should they all be grouped together as one lump sum? Why or why not?
-XT
[QUOTE=Onomatopoeia]
Look up? What part of ‘lazy’ did you not understand?
[/QUOTE]
I’m orders of magnitude more lazy than you could ever imagine. 
John Mace made a comment where he put ‘the rich’ in quotes. 'Luci asked why. I’m not John, but I made a comment as to why I thought he had. Again, trying to categorize people who make $250k/year with people who make $2.5 million/year with guys who make $25 million/year with guys who make $250 million/year is insane, IMHO. The people at each of those levels have very different lifestyles…radically different…and getting rid of those tax cuts is going to affect them all differently.
If you HAVE to work, then IMHO you aren’t rich. If working is a choice, then you are rich to one degree or another. Then you can get into categories like ‘super rich’ or ‘insanely rich’ or ‘ridiculously rich’.
When I was making that kind of money I considered myself upper middle class, and my goal was to BECOME ‘rich’…IOW, to make enough money that I could retire and not have to work unless I wanted too. To be self sufficient. That goal pretty much died in 2001 (for now) and I have much more modest goals now.
-XT
Rich enough to buy a bunch of cars with cash and take a cruise with a bunch of extras, like limo pickup and a few pre-cruise days in a fancy hotel. If I had been smart and cashed in my options then I could probably have quit - not that I would have, since I actually liked (and like) my job. I also saved enough to be able to pay for college for my kids, so they’ve graduated with no debt.
In any case, the point is I felt fairly rich, rich enough so the marginal utility of an extra dollar was fairly small, and rich enough so that the additional Clinton tax had no impact on my behavior. And I wasn’t quite at $250K. Rich enough so that I’m fairly confident that a small increase in marginal tax rates now would not bring the economy to its knees. Any adverse impact is going to be far less than continuing to cut money for people who will actually spend it.
The 250 dividing is just that. Arguing about people making almost exactly that misses the point. It encompasses everybody above that line. That is a lot of very rich people. It is some people not as rich. But it is not confiscating anyones wealth.
They have drained the middle class and poor. It is time to share some the pain to get back on track.
$250K a year is hardly in the realm of the very rich or the ultra-rich. And we’ve all been concentrating on income and neglecting wealth. I suspect I’d feel a lot less rich if I had no money saved up for retirement. Since I do (and I can get it without penalty in exactly one month, not that I’m going to) I feel a lot richer.
My metric is that we don’t have to budget. We do buy big ticket items and do big ticket projects without worrying about what we need to give up. We’re rich enough to buy from thrift shops because we want to, not because we have to. I’m always going to look for a bargain, but that comes from being a New Yorker and the way my Depression-era parents taught me, not because I have to.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
Rich enough to buy a bunch of cars with cash and take a cruise with a bunch of extras, like limo pickup and a few pre-cruise days in a fancy hotel. If I had been smart and cashed in my options then I could probably have quit - not that I would have, since I actually liked (and like) my job. I also saved enough to be able to pay for college for my kids, so they’ve graduated with no debt.
[/QUOTE]
Then you are rich (congrats :)). When I made that kind of money 10 years ago I was not. What does that say? That the level of income really doesn’t matter as much as the rest of your financial situation. I could not have stopped working. I could not buy a ‘bunch of cars with cash’. I could not take a cruise for with all the trimmings. I had lots of debt at the time.
Yes, but you are by your own admission ‘rich’. When I was making that kind of money I was not, and it would have entailed some level of pain to have my taxes go up. Would it have been the end of the world? Nope…it wouldn’t be the end of the world NOW (and I make less than a third of what I made then) if they increased my taxes back to the levels they were when Clinton was in office. It would still be a hit, though.
-XT
Or, alternatively, the biggest credit bubble in history. Best way to judge the Bush years is trough to trough economic growth, from the trough of the last recession to the trough of the Bush recession. Doesn’t look good for Bush.
Or job creation. Bush managed to be the only prez in history to lose jobs on his watch while Clinton created 22 million.
Or average GDP growth. Average post war growth per prez, 3.5%. Reagan, 3.5%. Clinton, 3.6%. Bush, 1.9%.
Or look at the deficit Bush inherited versus the deficit he left. Oh yeah, he inheited the first surplus in living memory. Better scratch that comparison too.
What do Fannie and Freddie have to do with antything?
Why shouldn’t everyone take a “hit” to pay for the things you bought? (cough, Iraq, cough)
And yes, I do mean everyone. Roll back the tax cuts for all. Pay for what you bought.
Those who do not pay federal taxes will be paying their fair share by getting cuts to the services they use.
Rolling back the tax cuts and significant cutting of spending must both be done. Hard decisions have to be made. Anyone who thinks that you can dig out of the current deficit mess by leaving taxes the same (or cutting them more!), or by leaving spending alone is delusional.
Republicans need to set aside their hatred of Obama and their hyper-partisanship and admit this. Not gonna happen, but they still need to do it.
If the Obama administration’s criteria is anyone with salaries above $250K should have their taxes returned to rates prior to the Bush cuts then I’m okay with it, and this would affect me. The needs of the many…
There is the problem with your argument. You’re asking the middle class to take a double hit (reduced services and tax increases) while asking only a single hit of the poor (reduced services – they don’t pay significant income taxes anyway) and the rich (tax increases – they don’t significantly use the services anyway).
[QUOTE=Steve MB]
There is the problem with your argument. You’re asking the middle class to take a double hit (reduced services and tax increases) while asking only a single hit of the poor (reduced services – they don’t pay significant income taxes anyway) and the rich (tax increases – they don’t significantly use the services anyway).
[/QUOTE]
I’m not seeing the problem. For years now we’ve been hearing how the Bush Tax Cuts were ONLY for ‘the rich’, or at most they were minor for everyone but ‘the rich’…so, letting them all expire should be no burden on anyone, right? And I’m good with letting them expire…ALL of them. Since they only were for ‘the rich’, I’m failing to see the issue, to be honest…well, unless that was less than accurate.
Regardless, if we are really in trouble financially as a country, then it’s in everyone’s best interest and everyone’s duty really to see us out of it. I think the whole thing is a giant red herring, as I said earlier…the actual money they will realize from allowing the tax cuts to expire will be, IMHO, much less than the projected amounts they are using, because I think people, especially rich people, will find other ways to get around them.
-XT