Not sure where to put this, but I have just been wondering about this tonight. Only 6% of Americans make over $200,000, why would the other 94% care about how much taxes they pay?
For instance, 2 of the items in the Hillary tax plan were:
[ul]
[li]Creates a 4 percent “surcharge” on high-income taxpayers, which would apply to AGI above $5 million.[/li][li]Enacts the “Buffett Rule,” which would establish a 30 percent minimum tax on taxpayers with adjusted gross income (AGI) above $1 million. The minimum tax would phase in between $1 million and $2 million of AGI.[/li][/ul]
This is more than $200,000. Why would people who don’t make $1 million or above care about that? Should I care about that? Why should I?
Because, right or wrong, rich people are often perceived as paying a much lower percentage of their income in taxes than poor people, due to loopholes and tax breaks that only the rich can take advantage of.
The rich have a larger amount of disposable income. The first $50,000 of income per household should be tax free as all people need food, clothing, and shelter. After that apply the graduated tax scale.
Sorry, I meant people seem to care that rich people might pay a higher percentage in taxes then other non-rich people. Why do people who aren’t rich care that rich people pay a higher percentage?
I’ve been drinking, so I guess it wasn’t as clear typed out as in my head
“The reason socialism never took root in America is that most Americans do not see themselves as oppressed proletarians, but rather as temporarily embarrassed capitalists.”
But people who aren’t rich seem to be against that. I make less than $1 million a year, why should I be mad if people who DO make $1 million a year or more pay more taxes?
Maybe because as I’ve learnt from these very boards, everyone with wealth has fully earned that wealth no matter how great — excepting what was called the minute fraction of wealth that is inherited — because to receive that wealth they obviously provided an equal amount of value to the public good.
Therefore to diminish that wealth is pure envy and wicked class hatred — against a splendid class that has no animosity or rapacity to other classes. Wealth equals Virtue, and as with that old time Prosperity Gospel the more you have, the greater the proof that God Loves you ( and thus He Despises your poorer neighbours ).
And bearing in mind Steinbeck’s alleged observation that every American feels himself to be a temporarily distressed millionaire, a certain fellow feeling is to be expected.
The basic argument is: when was the last time a poor person handed you a pay check? If we tax the rich too heavily they may just take more of their wealth (and possibly themselves) off-shore. I am NOT saying I buy it. Personally I would like to see Hollywood stars, no matter what political party they prefer, taxed on the scale of an Ernie Kovacs and athletes taxed into near-oblivion ------- but that could just be me.
Here’s my answer: it’s the same as the that old Yakov Smirnoff joke about why the Russian chickens cross the road: “Because they are TOLD to.”
Specifically, the Republican right has invested millions of dollars, and decades of political propaganda to convince everyone that somehow, if rich people pay too much, they will cross their arms in a petulant huff, and refuse to invest it or spend it any more.
It's crap, of course, there's no historic support for that, save for when taxes reach the REAL point of confiscation. Taxes have been as high as ninety percent in some cases, and the rich griped, but paid.
In other words, as always, people are not convinced to support most ideas through abstract reasoning. People ESPECIALLY aren’t persuaded to be generous, by way of pure concept. They are convinced by making them at least THINK that they need to decide as you want them to do, for their OWN reasons and interests.
Thanks for your response. The thing is, most people in the US will NOT be any more generous by raising taxes on those making $200K or more. Or a $1 Million or more. Yet they still think that’s a bad idea. Disturbs me, really. Mostly because I just don’t get it, and I hate not understanding something, especially when around 33% of Americans think it.
You are not living in a isolated bubble, but in a interdependant society and definitely not a rugged individualist. We have a government where the people have some say over what tax policy should be, so your input, if you care, is factored in, in this case through a candidate. So taxes are the current standard where the regulatory institute called the government gets its revenue to presumably build things for societal infrastructure. How much one should pay is in general assumed to be linked to how much one earned (which makes sense, as it is a use fee on the US currency, just like any other service, you pay for what you use).
Furthermore, the money is being taken from these noble, hardworking Real Americans and given to lazy freeloading welfare queens.
It’s not about how much rich people pay in taxes, it’s that people hate the government and want to starve it. If we ever entered another total war and had to dedicate the full weight of the American economy towards defeating a common enemy, then rich people paying a 90% effective tax rate would be seen as noble and good and conservatives would be all for it.
What do I care whether gays have the right to marry? I’m not gay. And yet I stick up for them anyway. I’m not black, and yet for some reason I gladly take their side on issue after issue. Time and again, I’m just full to brimming with – uh, sympathy? Maybe compassion? A disinterested love of justice? I don’t know what to call it.
But whatever it is, if I hear that you want to take some guy’s money, I think, hey, wait a minute; I’m not that guy, but I want to hear why you want to take his money; that matters to me, for some reason. You say he’s rich? Hmm. No, I still care.
Ah, under the joys of what has become the US tax code ------ not necessarily and we could very well be surprised. Remember; the rich aren’t trying to get out of paying all of their US taxes ---- just what some of us consider their fair share.
I care about the second and third order dynamic effects of the taxation system. Rich people make different decisions about money when we fiddle the system, like how and how much to invest in risky behaviors that promote GDP growth. Some of that’s things that are designed to target them but also require compliance in the tax system by people that are below the incomes that actually pay into it; those are still opportunity costs for individuals, and possibly the economy as a whole, even if the govt doesn’t collect anything from them at the end.
