Please give a chain of events where raising taxes back to 1990s levels for the rich will hurt the economy - or is this just a matter of faith? Taxes at these levels 15 years ago did not do any harm at all.
for the same reason poor people don’t like paying more taxes?
Ew! I should hope not!
Putting scare quotes around “rich” doesn’t change the amount of money they have after paying for necessities one little bit. Why not put them around “poor” too - the “poor” claim they have a hard time getting by.
If the average rich person were so worried about the poor not paying taxes (and of course they actually do pay plenty) they can back living wages or at least boosts in the minimum wage to get more people up to the level where they have enough income to pay. Problem solved.
Of course. Whining has worked so far. Classic behavioral psychology. Persons will repeat behaviors that have been rewarded.
If you want to stop the whining, stop giving into it. It’s the only way.
A lot of the answers in this thread are not saying much of anything. “The rich don’t wanna pay more taxes cause they want to keep their money!” Well, duh.
I’m more interested in hearing why people (rich or poor) are so vehement that we not raise taxes that they are actually more willing to gut entitlement programs that keep little ole grannies and veterans alive than see a rich guy pay one cent more to Uncle Sam.
It would be different if the stakes involved discretionary spending only, but they don’t. It would also be different if the rich here were taxed far out of step with what their counterparts in other countries are taxed, but they aren’t. Furthermore, if there was evidence that a low tax rate was doing any good to the economy or job growth, maybe I could understand the Republican’s rabid anti-tax stance. But from what I can see, there is no good reason why we should accept the idea that taxing the rich more will leave us worse off than what we already are.
And yet there are people out there who act like there is a good reason. Please, if anyone knows what that reason is, explain and defend it.
I suppose the ultimate question is where does it end? How much more do people need to pay in taxes and how many more entitlements do people need? I think most people would agree that when you break your leg, you should be able to walk into any emergency room and get treated. But should the government also pay for your long term care and recovery? How about if you broke your leg jumping a bicycle off your roof like a jackass?
In a vague economics sense, the more the government provides, the more people expect to be taken care of and the more risks they are willing to take. It’s called “moral hazard”. it applies to businesses as well as people. As long as someone else is providing for your safety, health, education and so on, people have less incentive to take steps to protect these things themselves.
But that’s a lot of economics thinking for some guy out in Bumblefuck USA making $45,000 a year. The real reason is that your typical working middle class Republican conservative sees higher taxes as allowing the Government to spend a ton of money on lazy poor people (usually minorities).
It wasn’t a scare tactic. Rich was in quotations simply to point out the fact that certain people would be taxed more solely for having a high enough income.
1.) I said Federal income tax. Try to stay on topic. However, since you mentioned taxes, thanks to EITC it’s important to note that the poor tend to receive more money than they pay out in taxes. Imagine how much money we could save if we got rid of EITC? 
<insert a bunch of ranting about how that’s not fair/right here>
2.) It’s fairly well accepted that increases in minimum wage tend to have a negative effect on employment. Furthermore, increases in the minimum wage tend to have little effect on the working poor, since the majority of people who are on minimum wage live about two to three times the poverty level. You’d solve nothing by increasing the minimum wage.
So why ask a question you know the answer to? 
The question is how much “it” is. Contrary to what most on the SDMB would like to believe, the income tax has steadily gotten more and more progressive.
Everyone’s tax rates are lower than they used to be, but the rates have really dropped for the low- and medium-income earners. Cite. As a result, upper earners have been bearing a larger and larger share of the tax burden. Cite. Can you see their annoyance at people saying that they “aren’t paying their fair share?” In fact, it is those of us who are non-rich who have been paying less and less of the cost of government.
It’s also true, on the other hand, that in recent decades, the overall increase in wealth has disproportionately gone to the top-earners. Cite. So one could argue that they can still afford it; but human nature being what it is, they’re going to want to see some “shared sacrifice.”
While you are admirably willing to see your taxes raised, most people are not so inclined. If we’re not willing to pay our own way, most upper-quintile-income-earners (the majority of whom were born poor or middle-class), are understandably disinclined to pick up the tab.
You think a lot of grandmother and veterans among the wealthy are going to be living on the streets?
But it’s deceptive to say that the rich are paying more while only focusing on income tax. For the wealthy, income is usually only a fraction of where their money comes from. The tax rate on money from investments is far lower than the tax rate on ordinary income. That’s why somebody like Warren Buffett pays a lower percentage than his secretary does.
“How many more entitlements do people need?” Well, enough to get us to universal healthcare isn’t an unreasonable expectation since plenty of other countries are doing it, but if we can’t do that, then let’s at least look after veterans, the elderly, and disabled. It amazes me that politicians are actually, in so many words, saying we can’t even do that. And people are swallowing that.
I’m sorry, but what does this have to do with the discussion? I’m not talking about random jackasses breaking their leg and going to the ER, because that has nothing to do with the current fight over taxes. I’m talking about cutting back on Medicare and VA spending, which, by the way, will lead to underinsured people going to the ER for medical care. The scenario you just presented is the course we’re currently rushing towards, not away from.
You could just as easily extend this argument to the rich. They get to keep more money because their tax rate is so low, so what would be the incentive for them to work harder to make more money? None! So let’s tax them more, I say! (Note: I don’t believe this argument is sound.)
This argument is still missing some major things, though. How does the “moral hazard” apply to a poor, uninsured sick person who can’t get Medicaide benefits because the program is suddenly underfunded? It is not as though by taxing the rich a little more, previously healthy, productive people are going to turn into layabouts overflooding the healthcare and welfare system. Maybe if we were talking about providing every citizen with a McMansion loft in NYC, a Mercedes, and a lifetime supply of groceries, I could why the “moral hazard” would be relevant to the question of raising taxes for the wealthy. But we are actually talking about something as basic and pathetic as paying for healthcare for the elderly.
Right. What they forget is that those “lazy poor people” are just an older version of them.
Why the sole focus on income taxes? Due to state deficits, some states have had to adjust sales and state income tax rates.
If you include all local, state, and federal taxes, we barely have a progressive tax structure. In fact, just as lower income people pay a little less (as percentage of income) in total taxes, upper income people also pay a bit less, due primarily to lower rates on investment income.
Nobody wants to personally pay more in taxes. But many people, even upper income people, would not find it so objectionable if federal income taxes were increased on bigger incomes or if tax laws were adjusted to get rid of loopholes and certain deductions.
For God’s sake, man, at least read the OP before responding rather than responding just to the title of the thread. The options right now seem to be a) raise revenue or b) default which will cause havoc in the economic community or c) maintain a large and increasing deficit in the US that will eventually cause havoc in the economic community.
Paying increased taxes seems to be the least painful option, particularly if this is coupled with reasonable spending cuts. But the Republicans are resolutely guarding against any tax increases whatsoever, even though this appears to be against their own best interests.
Defend this.
I just thought I’d add something I’ve said in many threads now.
The super wealthy like Warren Buffet pay sub-20% tax rates not because of any substantial loop holes but simply because capital gains are taxed at 15%, and if you are a billionaire likelihood is most of your earnings will be capital gains not earned income.
For some reason when people talk about Buffet’s “loopholes” I get this impression that they think Buffet’s accountants have reduced his rates because of thousands of little loopholes that only hard core teams of tax accountants and tax lawyers could ever find.
Does Buffet probably get all the credits and favorable classifications he could theoretically get, because he has the best advice money can buy? Sure, he probably does. But at the end of the day when 90% of your income is in capital gains that is going to have a far more important impact on your tax rate than the fact that the accountants can help offset the $100,000 in earned income Buffet makes each year with common deductions.
Even more narrowly, I’ve seen the outrage rendered as (more or less) “the mooching poor pay zero in Federal income tax”, adding yet another qualifier as a form of lipsticking the pig.
Because most of the rich or even relatively well off (making over $250k per year) do not feel like their success came from being in the US of A. I posit that most people who make over $250k per year (or have the realistic option of making that much money at some point) had relatively well off parents. These people had the extra-curricular opportunities to be well rounded, had private schools and/or all the University test prep advantages, didn’t have to work through school, didn’t rack up tons of university debt, didn’t have to take the first job out there to make rent instead of getting the right first job, have a built in family safety net, likely had help getting that first decent job, have been mentored and coached on how to get in and make it in the business world, etc. This advantage normal for their circle and they generally have no real (maybe a theoretical) idea of what most people without those advantages have to go through. These people with advantages think it’s all due to their own hard work and discount the advantages they had. And it follows they think that poor people are lazy and just didn’t apply themselves. The “rich” also justify it because they pay more tax on an absolute basis (but not %). Therefore, why should the rich pay more tax since it was their own “hard” work.
Personally, I feel that it’s a great problem to have being in the top tax bracket. In my case, I was not happy about paying 45% Chinese tax for more than a decade and having to pay Uncle Sugar on top of that. But, it was really clear too what life is like for the Chinese person that paid only 10% tax because they made that much less money.
Zephyurs I like your post. Agree 100%
Quick question:
Should we include the absurbly low amount of corporate tax collected in this country?
Income Tax $950B
Corporate Tax $200B
In the 60s corporate tax was 30 percent of the tax we collected. It is down to 6. We are short revenue. Taxes for the wealthy have been dropping like a stone since Reagan. We have a revenue problem. We have permitted the wealthy and corporations to evade taxes on a massive scale. The loopholes are plentiful and hiding it offshore like the Caimans and Bermuda is common. We have a revenue problem. Bush started 2 wars without paying for them. He actually cut taxes while he did it. We have a revenue problem.
We can not unstart the wars. But we can raise taxes to pay for the damn stupid things. We have to raise revenue.