Mitt Romney, the GOP, Libertarian Philosophy all equal tooth fairy Economics

I believe that is exactly the same argument Hitler made to the Germans. I always find it fascinating how readily liberals throw a subsection of the population under the bus for the so-called good of the collective.

A little test I like to take when thinking about a law I would like to apply to some minority group of the population is this. Apply the law to yourself first and see if you still like it.

Either that or you deal with the ever growing government. The federal government has traditionally run on 18% of GDP. Under Obama, our government now requires 25% of GDP. Just getting the size of government back down to where it was under Clinton will take a dramatic change of course, a change Obama has vowed not to take.

 

That tells me you have no idea about 'community'. A way of getting things done more efficiently, the purpose of the government in the first place.

Yes, if I was earning 10 million dollars a year then i would happily pay to help my friends and neighbours prosper too. The same as any 'normal' person would imho.

 

Romney does pay his friends and neighbors. The man donates more to charity annually than you will see in your lifetime, not to mention the fact he is generous with his time and money with friends and associates.

No, your argument is not about what someone would gladly do. Your argument is about making some small subsection of the population do something they, like you, would not want to do. Like I said, take your law and apply it to yourself. Commit to sending 40% of your money to the government and then you will be in a place to ask someone else to do the same. If you are unwilling to do that, you are just a hypocrite, plain and simple.

 

Here's something I learned that made me consider this more. Did you know the top 1% is paying about 22% of our taxes? Also, the top 20% are paying almost 70% of our taxes! I think that's amazing. Especially when you consider many of them may use less government funded resources. One could say that's not fair. I don't like the focus on taking more from the rich. It seems defeatist. Instead, I wish our main focus would just be creating more jobs and opportunity.

 

Death taxes. The second the millionaires drop dead take it ALL. Stuff spoiling their kids with it. That alone might fix things and heaven's forbid, make it better again.

The point is your country hasn't gotten itself out of the Bush created mess. We can go on and on about not raising taxes on the super rich but seeing it hasn't solved the problem then imho they need to take one for the team. There's the difference I see in your argument. Doing nothing except arguing about not paying your FAIR share keeps your country in recession.

Name one millionaire who got there by himself. It takes a team to put him there in the first place. The same goes for any city, it takes a team of hardworking professionals to make it work. When any member of the team works against the rest of course things will not go smoothly. When they start openly sabotaging everything the team is trying to achieve then take them out and string them up, the same as should be done to all Republicans!

It seems to me Republicans don't care about anything but themselves. You really gotta be hard up to believe Romney had any chance as i'm sure most Americans want this mess sorted, not more war.

 

Wow. You are getting genuinely creepy. Replace the word millionaire with Jew or Homosexual. Not fitting in? String em up! Working against our agenda? Kill them.

Thank goodness for Obama, he is more articulate at selling these ideas than you are, but they ARE the same ideas. Kinda crazy, isn't it?

 

That was rhetoric. I agree Obama says it much nicer.

 

Saying it nicer doesnt change a thing. It's the same thing whether you rob someone with a growl or a smile.

 

taxes = robbing? lol, there's a problem. Taxes are a way to help us afford the things we wouldn't be able to afford by ourselves.

taxes = paying my fair share to enhance my life too. I prefer to drive on a tarred road. I like the fact when it rains the water runs off the driveway into the stormwater instead of sticking round for days and weeks. I like those reflectors on the post each side of the road. I like the way our community bridge saves me traveling hours to get back home. I like the way that smelly brown stuff can be flushed away. My taxes help keep those things functional.

I pay taxes. Whilst I will argue against some of the crap they spend it on, taxes are used for good things too.

If anything I feel lucky that I do earn enough money where I can give something back to my community. I prefer to earn lots and pay tax than to earn pittance and avoid paying tax.

 

You mean like Obama has helped his brother?

 

Wow!! Some people are so naive...

They DOOOOOOOOOO, do it an get their own... Yes, certain people on THEIR team might help them get there buy THEY DO IT, not the government.

Having said that, does a head trader at a hedge fund (decides on most trades), not do it on his own? With the help of a few analysts and back office peeps?

 

They sure as hell aren't giving. You need to read a history book on how and why America demanded it's independence from Britain. It had a lot to do with taxes. When you single out a small subsection of the population, and tax them at an astronomically higher rate than the remainder of the population, it is unquestionably robbery.

 

It's a donation!

 

One problem we face is taxes don't get dropped. For example the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake brought new taxes to Santa Cruz. Those taxes continued long after and if I am not mistaken they are still there. Then again, California is very liberal and so comes the high government waste, so no matter how many taxes they will over spend to make sure they can raise them again.

If I am not mistaken all the public schools in the USA work this way as well, budgets are over spent even when not needed, in order to make sure they get more money the next year.

 

Rebecca: While I saw recently that you early voted for Romney I know you have elements of independent thinking.

To clarify. Yes, the top 1%, 5%, 10% and 20% pay disproportionately higher share of taxes than do those with incomes less than them. The key for a family or an individual is disposable income after taxes and/or other expenses. Its not tax rates. Its certainly not tax rates around the levels we are seeing these days....Currently the debate is somewhere around 39.6% for the highest income level if Obama is in office and he manages to end the period of Bush tax cuts. On the other level its 28% if Romney gets in office and he manages to pass that change. Even at the higher rate it is nothing like marginal tax rates that existed before Reagan. (btw: those extraordinarily high rates on highest income people were used as part of the way to pay off the extraordinary levels of debt that accompanied WWII.).

At the 20% highest income level a married family is paying a marginal rate of 25%. I like to use married families with kids as an analysis because their disposable income is what gets hit the hardest.

For that family with kids, and assuming a mortgage and a variety of items you can write off that family might have an effective tax rate of about 15 or 20%. Say its 20% because that makes the math a little easy.

At the 20% highest income level a household is making about $90,000. Tax that worker/employee at an effective fed rate of 20% and that means about $18,000 in fed taxes. That leaves $72,000 after fed taxes or about $6,000/month.

That family needs to budget. Life is okay, especially if you don't live in one of the high cost regions of the country, but you still need to watch your dollars. You have a mortgage (probably) car payments, state taxes, real estate taxes, etc. You are paying something for insurance and its at a family rate ...not a young person single rate. Its higher. You are paying for food and clothing and other necessities for your family.

That family has a disposable income of $6,000/month. Do the math. At ever lower incomes those people have ever lower amounts of disposable income. That is life. They can't pay the freight as well for fed taxes.

Now take a family at the current max threshold for the current highest income fed tax rate. That threshold is at about $388,000. Round it off to $400,000.

Assume the various tax liabilities at different rates.

At the proposed Romney/Ryan rate of 28% that family pays and ignore deductions for simplicity's sake. That family pays $112,000 in taxes and has a disposable income of $288,000 or $24,000/month.

At the current max rate of 35% that person pays $140,000 to the Feds and has disposable income of $260,000 or between $21 and $22,000/month.

At the proposed Obama rate which takes one back to 2000 the fed rate would be 39.6%. Round it off to 40% for simplicity. That family pays $160,000 and has $240,000 in disposable income after fed taxes. That family is left with $20,000/month.

Look, I've been all over the tax world from little income and low taxes to high income. I don't spend crazy. $20,000/month goes a long way. You can live well, if not like a king, even in high cost regions of the US.

Why should people pay more or less? Well one issue is the federal deficit. It does need to be cut. There are a lot of ways to attack the deficit but every single reasonable and historical approach acknowledges both federal spending cuts and tax increases. The only folks who argue against that are the extreme reps of the GOP. But cutting taxes and tax rates HAS NEVER reduced the budget deficit. N.E.V.E.R.

Reagan cut income tax rates by a lot. Budget deficits increased. Afterwards he raised taxes, though not on income: he raised other taxes to deal with increasing deficits. Look it up. By the time Reagan came around he lowered marginal tax rates on the wealthiest from around 50% then to below 30%. Then Bush I and Clinton came in and they raised marginal income tax rates. By the latter part of the 1990's deficits were shrinking and fed budgets were showing a surplus.

But fed deficits are real bad now...as they have been during periods of our history. Over the 1900's fed tax rates went up and down dramatically...a lot had to do with balancing budget deficits. Its simple common sense.

One last thing about the family with the $400,000 income. The single bread winner, if that is the case is probably a business owner or a highly paid professional. Very very very few individuals earn that level of income as an employee. If they are a business owner they have the mother load of tax benefits. They get the business to pick up lots of expenses that everyone else pays for post tax. The business pays for things like cars, car expenses, telecom, internet access, possibly you write off a home office in your house, trips, stuff galore. Its a great deal.

Now as to redistributing income to the wealthier or poorer by using tax policy.

Before I thought about it much I suppose I bought into the Right Wing philosophy of put money into the hands of the wealthy and they will spend it and invest it and it will drive the economy. I have now had some investments for a fairly long time.

But in fact the reverse is true. Hard research has shown ZERO correlation between huge tax cuts for the wealthy and tremendous economic growth. Look at the 90's. That was great boom period relative to the 1980's and taxes on marginal rates were higher. Look at the 1950's and into the 1960's. Those were incredible overall boom years and better than the 1980's and the 2000's in terms of overall growth. Look at the 1950's into the late 1960's. Overall incredible boom years for the American economy and that was when marginal tax rates on the highest income people were at 90% and then 70% in the 1960's. Those are extraordinarily high...but they accompanied tremendous overall boom periods for the US economy.

Most economic growth is accompanied by the changes in demand and supply and domestically things have historically grown when demand grew. Hard research has shown that actually instead of redistributing income to the wealthy...periods of redistributing income to the less well off goes further to create more demand and more economic growth.

The probable reason is it increases demand from huge numbers of people not a tiny few that may or may not spend it or invest it.

Go back to the 20% highest income bracket that you originally referenced as part of your comments. Those families, currently after fed taxes have about $6,000/month to spend. Lots of it goes out to things you have to do: pay state taxes and fees, pay the mortgage or rent, buy food, feed and clothe your family, etc. Then take the families with less income then them. They have to budget hard to make it. And remember....they are the 90% or 80% (at lower incomes) etc.

If they have more money...they spend it. They spend it on a lot of consumer items they need or want badly.

Now...when that money goes into the economy, businesses start making business investment to meet that demand. They hire employees, they buy equipment, they may invest in machinery or technology that could take the place of employees...but they invest to meet more demand. Business investment is one of the keys to overall growth. More demand from the 50, 60, 70, 80, 90% of the population spurs more overall spending and more investment.

What really works to spur growth is the reverse of trickle down economics.

Its not income distribution or communism, or socialism. Its actually good economics.

Now there are all sorts of other considerations. We live in a world with far more international implications than in the past. But those basics described above still hold true.

Now I would have enjoyed getting into the debates here earlier today, but I was working. Its something I enjoy doing in the world of business, markets, and competition. I think I found a "rat" trying to screw with one of our little businesses. It could be malicious or it could be some hacker prank. Don't know yet. It was baffling. I went to a world of experts, generated a lot of commentary, questions, and suggestions. They helped me get clarity and I unearthed at least a part of this problem. Then I was able to get to where it was "seemingly" originating...and someone in this other place passed on the issue to a person who had the capability to knowingly say there is a scam aloose. Now he and I are closing in on the culprit.

I hope its a competitor. I want to whup on a competitor with the evidence and hard facts...and crush them. We operate this particular business very well and very clean. Amazingly clean over a long period of time. Its one of our best operating businesses. We overwhelm competition...simply because we out perform them and out provide them again and again over the decades. We do it without bullsh1t or cheating.

The competitors have been trying to snake us with bullsh1t. I hope I find its one of them. Because if I do we will hit em back finally with hard evidence. If its not them, I'll wait for the next opportunity to try and f*ck em if they keep cheating and trying to snake us. I sorta enjoy that. Its part of the competitive nature of business. and with that I hope you have an enjoyable night.

 

But keep it up and you will be called an extremist.

@earl: so many paragraphs to field a few simple ideas. Let me shorten it up for you.

1) People only need so much money, so anything earned above that amount should be taxable at a 90% rate

2) The government can do much better things with that money than those wealthy people.

3) Wealth redistribution is good for business.
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Your ideas are outrageous to the point of not needing a response. When you put a cap on what a person can earn, you kill productivity. When you redistribute the fruits of hard labor, people no longer work hard. It isn't complicated.

 

@EarlPearl

Still, if the top 20% already pay 70% of our taxes, should we force them to pay more? I just think it's getting ugly. Do you remember Occupy Wall Street? It was surprising how many haters on that forum that resent anyone with money. I don't want America to be like that. We've always admired success. It seems Obama has a way of dividing people. I just want our country to unite, and focus on positive ways to improve the economy for all Americans. I think jobs and opportunity are key.

Do you like any of these ideas?

Thanks EarlPearl, I hope you have an enjoyable night too.

 

Hey, Rebecca: I can respond to each of those 5 points. But the answers would be long winded. (ahhh....doesn't that exactly replicate how Paul Ryan refused to get specific about his and Romney's tax proposal as it might bust the budget by $5 trillion????). He avoided the answer in total.

But I can respond on each one. If you want I will. But the answers will be long winded.

I will say this about question 5. I run/operate share in several small businesses. Biggest volume on any one of them is low Seven figures revenues. They are small.

No Political parties CHAMPION small businesses. Its all bullsh1t. The businesses that get championed are large and have large lobbying efforts on their behalf in the DC region. Their reps get paid millions if not 10's of millions, they contribute millions to campaigns and they have huge sway on legislation. Small businesses have none of that.

I put this terrific proposal for Small Business assistance and education on behalf of a so called "small business" organization rep, through a key employee I know. Nothing got done by that org. They have a political agenda. They have done nothing on the proposal. Not only would it not have cost them anything they would have received a rebate on their members who would have taken advantage of the opportunity.

They did zero. That same contact sent me info on a dilemma one of their members was facing on this topic. I didn't have full info but I suggested some things I knew tied to the process suggested to him (of which I have no part, ownership, or financial interests) that would have been provided to the small businesses. Subsequently I discovered my suggestions were on target.

that so called rep of small businesses isn't doing anything but presenting a political agenda, collecting dues, and using affiliates to sell services...and frankly I was suggesting a new affiliate.

there are no political reps of small businesses in the political world. I've had passive and active investment roles in small businesses now for a couple of decades. There is no Poltical M'F'er who has stood up for us. Everything else is hot air.

 

lol !!!!!!!!!!!!

 

@Earlpearl

With the election, perhaps it's a mute point now. However, you did touch on this one.

5. Champion small business. Small businesses are the engine of job creation in this country, but they will struggle to succeed if taxes and regulations are too burdensome or if a government in Washington does its best to stifle them. Pursue comprehensive tax reform that lowers tax rates for all Americans, and cut back on the red tape that drives up costs and discourages hiring.

But basically you're just saying "No Political parties CHAMPION small businesses." Although, big government can stifle businesses. Just one example might be the Affordable Care Act. Once a business has 50 employees they must provide government approved health care. I think it's great if employers can do that. Yet, I'm against it being required. I was reading an article yesterday. It listed many companies that are reducing hours of their employees to 30 hrs, or planning to just hire part time now, because they can't afford to pay this health insurance.