“Other countries”, by which you probably mean “Western Europe” are also heavily in debt.
My point is while you are evoking emotional appeals for “veterns and old people”, other people are evoking their own emotional appeals for their particular interest group.
The wealthy tend to have the most volatile income. States that rely heavily on taxing the wealthy are now in debt as the income of the wealthy decreased with the recent economic downturn.
The top tax rate—which applies to joint filers reporting $379,000 in taxable income—is still twice as high as the rate for joint filers reporting income of $69,000 or less.
Depending on what you define as “rich” you may well find that they can’t really spare it easier than you. As mentioned earlier many of these folks have really high fixed costs (nicer home [and related higher property taxes],nicer cars, private school for the kids, etc.). Now of course you could say they could do without them, but to be fair that’s not really any of your business and some of those things such as a house might be hard for them to extract themselves from.
So you’re saying people who can’t afford to send their kids to private schools should sympathize with the people who had to sacrifice a Caribbean cruise to send their kids to a private school.
That’s the whole problem in a nutshell. Rich people want non-rich people to appreciate the difficulties of being rich. Well, not being rich is no picnic either. And being poor outright sucks.
At least rich people have an option. If they find their wealth is too harsh a burden, they can always give most of their money away and enjoy the stress-free lifestyle of the middle class. Or give it all away and enjoy the tax-free joys of poverty.
I’m not saying rich people have perfect lives. I know they have problems. But middle class people have bigger problems. And poor people have problems even worse than that. So rich people should stop whining to non-rich people.
The difference is that the middle class is spending their money on things a lot harder to cut out, like food. If a rich person is living so close to the edge that a small increase in marginal tax rates is going to cause a crisis, they’ve got other problems. Now I don’t doubt that such people exist - I’m marginally related to one such family - but cutting out the trips to Europe staying at the fanciest hotels would solve their problems quite nicely.
In any case, if all the rich are spending all their money on this crap, where do you suppose we’d get the investment dollars from - the investments that in some way are supposed to create jobs.
If these “rich” people are so extended, that is their problem. They should not be spending every penny such that they cannot handle an unexpected cost of a few extra thousand, whether it be for taxes or some emergency.
I would expire all the Bush tax cuts. The middle class can afford to pay more also - I don’t see why Obama is so intent on protecting the middle class anyway, other than for political reasons - he won’t get their votes if he raises their taxes. Throughout the entire income range, Americans pay very low taxes compared with most other developed countries.
I can’t speak for the rich since I’m not. I can say why I’d be opposed to raising taxes.
The problem is government spends too much money. Period. Giving them more money isn’t going to solve the problem any more than giving more alcohol to a drunk will sober him up.
Probably, inevitably, taxes will have to go up on everyone. But they shouldn’t even discuss it until they’ve gotten spending under control, until they’ve reformed the entitlement system and expunged all the waste, fraud and abuse.
Say there is some program that spends 100 million, but only does 80 million of ‘good’ – it has 20% waste, fraud and abuse.
So we push for reform, and take an ax to that program, cutting 20 million out of it.
What we end up with is 64 million of ‘good’, and 16 million wasted..
So we add another layer of oversight to help prevent waste, fraud and abuse.. The oversight costs 10 million, and you can cut down the abuse, saving 2 million.
Look, I never said people should sympathize. I merely pointed out that “rich” people may not have as much expendable income as you think. $379,150 (beginning of the top tax bracket in 2011) can be blown through pretty quickly if paying mortgage in a coastal city while sending a few kids to private school. I’m an accountant and my wife is a public school teacher so we make nowhere near this, but people poorer than us could use the same argument you made against the “rich”. We very well could live in a trailer house and drive mopeds and have lots more money to give to the government.
Depends how you define rich. I am in the 500k plus category and I pay a tremendous amount in taxes. It really does not go as far as you think. My Federal taxes are in excess of 140k p/a. The danger is that the tax dollars are wasted, which I feel is likely, and that you tax people so much that it becomes a disincentive for people to work more or invest more.
And Obama citing a a survey saying 80% want more taxes (who was surveyed, how many, how were the questions asked etc.) continues to diminish this shrinking President.
Not to Obama. If what you say is true, then his comment about not knowing if Social Security checks will be sent out is clearly a lie. Oh, but that doesn’t count to you, does it?
Why don’t you give us one example of a human enterprise with no waste, fraud, or abuse? Do you spend 100% of your time at work at work? Never chat at the coffee maker? Never post anything? If not, then you are abusing your company and are an example of waste.
Spending on things you don’t like is not an example of spending not being in control. Iraq without a way to pay for it was an example of spending not in control. Running a deficit to pay unemployment in order to ease the suffering and keep consumption from crashing is not.
That’s pretty much exactly the amount of economics thinking I expect from my neighbors in “Bumblefuck” (Come visit! Try the BBQ!) Too bad it’s based on supposition and anecdote.
When “Bumblefuck” was hit by the most costly tornado ever, Eric Cantor (House majority whine machine) said that aid could not be allocated until other cuts were made. Just another place to be a hardheaded negotiator.
Sound enough, by right-wing standards.
Well, they might not work 18-hour days for no health insurance. “Layabout” is verrry relative.
Good points I think, and I’m one of those people who is interested in confiscatory corporate taxes as a spur to the economy, though I see it as a matter of keeping money moving through the economy more than encouraging growth in the taxed business per se.
Well, Social Security is funded by 1) payroll taxes & 2) Treasury bonds. If the economy is too slow, payroll tax revenues may not cover enough, & if we veer toward default, the GOP leadership want to pay off other investors before Social Security. So he didn’t entirely make that up.
No it isn’t; it is funded by payroll taxes alone. Surplus (i.e. not needed to be paid out immediately) is then parked in special Treasury bond-like things until needed, but SS is not funded by any form of bond.