I don’t miss it at all. I think it’s a nebulous, meaningless concept.
I think it is fundamentally flawed to think that you can judge what is a “fair” or “correct” amount of money for others to have. You can only judge your situation. If Buffet thinks he isn’t paying enough in taxes, let him voluntarily give the government more. But for him to think that someone else should be forced to give his money to the government because Buffet thinks it is “unfair” that other person has too much is a ridiculous notion in my view. It’s an illegitimate use of government power to compel people to give up something just because you don’t like that they have it.
And, frankly, his view that it’s “unfair” that people like him are taxed too little is undercut by his unwillingness to do what he can to make the situation more “fair” by giving up his money. His wealth is the only wealth he can directly control. He should live up to his principles.
Since the rich pay a hugely disproportionate share of the burden and consumer fewer government services than the poor, I think your notion of what is “fair” is pretty skewed.
Your metaphor is a little off. To reflect the reality, the rich are the ones paying the check for them and for half the restaurant. The lower classes are the ones who are eating a huge amount of food and then sticking the rich with the bill.
She may sleep better knowing that a large portion of the presumably huge amount of taxes she is paying is not going to support the pointless war in Iraq.
This is complete baloney, no matter how often it gets repeated by conservatives. 10% of the people have 90% of the wealth. Corporations,especially, are undertaxed.
This is baloney as well. We are racking up literally trillions of doallrs in debt in Iraq right now, purely for the benfit of a few rich corporations. Why should I pay the bill for Halliburton’s war?
Well, what should they pay? If I made 10 million dollars this year, and I was taxed at a 50% rate, is that enough? Is it ok for me to take home 5 million if I’m paying 5 million? What if I made 100 million? Then is the 50% rate ok, or should it be higher? Or is the bottom line that I should have to pay until my take home comes down to what everyone else’s is? I think this is the fundamental problem in figuring out what’s “fair” or reasonable for people to pay. The rich pay a huge chunk of the taxes as it is. At what point does it become more than they should have to pay?
It’s repeated by conservatives because it is the truth:
[quote]
According to data from the IRS, the bottom 50 percent of income earners pay approximately 4 percent of income taxes.
The top 25 percent of income earners pay nearly 83 percent of the income tax burden, and the top 10 percent pay 65 percent.
The top 1 percent of income earners pay almost 35 percent of all income taxes.
The top 400 richest Americans paid 1.58 of total income taxes in 2000.
[quote]
Those cites are from here. Yes, it is a conservative group. But it gets its info from the IRS, so if you don’t like it show me some numbers to dispute it.
You shouldn’t. You also shouldn’t pay for the variety of programs that go to subsidize the middle class or those who don’t work. The fact is, though, most rich people don’t use that much in government services. Most poor people do. The rich pay a hugely disproportionate share in taxes. The poor don’t pay any taxes.
OK, how do you determine this? By what benefits they get from the government? If so, the poor should pay a lot more.
Yes, I see the necessity of taxes. I think they are a necessary evil. But all too often people look upon taxes as something good. Diogenes clearly wants to use them to punish people he thinks have too much income. Others want to use them to pay for useless programs that do nothing to help people. Yes, we are arguing over degrees, but they are pretty important degrees.
It could be argued and is once in a while that even the self-made rich rely on government services to the people who support their wealth as employees and tenants (for example), and so therefore participate in the benefits of government, as individuals, at a much greater rate than the average poor good-for-nothing welfare slob.
Perhaps it’s not true as a percentage of their income, but as an absolute measure of their income it’s definitely true, as they have more property for the police to protect, more travel for the government to help manage, and more legal transactions for the government to guarantee.
Which is not to say it’s impossible for these things to happen without government but they would be more expensive and less economically efficient.
You may be onto something…maybe that’s how we should run the government. Each person checks off on their taxes where they want the money to go, and you have to distribute that amount to each. Whatever doesn’t get funded goes. I likee!
The point is that it’s hypocritical for anyone to demand a program (or a war), that they aren’t willing to pay for. Money spent on social programs is a pittance compared to what gets spent in one month in Iraq. Somebody is going to have to pay that debt. The poor can’t pay it and neither can the working class. They haven’t even benefited from it. It;s oil companies and other corporation taking from the American people and then crying poor mouth when asked to settle their debts.
