Fixing Inequality through Taxes

It looks to you like that is exactly what happened, eh?

It looks to you as if someone has taken money from the middle class and given that money to the rich. Maybe you can explain who this person is and how he took the money out of the bank accounts of the middle class and deposited it into the bank accounts of the rich.

It looks to you as if the rich are actually taking money from the middle class. Again, please describe the process by which a rich person, let's say for example Oprah Winfrey, got the money out of the middle class' bank accounts.

Denial of what exactly?

 

Pretty much. I can't think of any other reason why the share of the national income going to the middle class would sudden start dropping while the portion going to the richest starts skyrocketing right at the time of the Reagan "trickle down" revolution which was designed to make the rich richer.

I have no idea what Oprah does. But the process generally works like this:

Step 1: Legally bribe your politicians with campaign contributions and other benefits
Step 2: Sponsor RW propaganda outlets to deceive the gullible masses
Step 3: Get the government to pass laws and policies that enrich corporations and their owners and top management at the expense of the working people.

That's pretty much how it is done.

The fact that so much of the nation's income and wealth has bee redistributed to the richest away form the middle classes since the Reagan "trickle down" revolution.

 

Apparently you are stuck in a political ideology that reads too much into what I said. I grew up in the 1950's, the middle class was expanding, more and more people were moving into it. The expanding middle class and the upward mobility was not a result of taxing the top 1% more to give to those on the bottom.

What was happening was most of those in the nation was seeing improvements in their lives and their standard of living increase. One does not expand the middle class or raise the poor into the middle class by taxation. You can treat the symptoms and provide a safety net, but not upward mobility.

If you think taxing the upper class, the top 1% or 10% more will automatically cause the poor to become rich, I think you are sadly mistaken.

 

Okay, so if that's what you propose is happening, then you'll need to explain who this person is and how he took the money out of the bank accounts of the middle class and deposited it into the bank accounts of the rich.

You failed to explain how the rich gain access to the bank accounts of the middle class and remove the money. If you're going to say that the rich are taking from the middle class, then you need back your assertion and explain how they gain access to the funds and how they transfer them to their own accounts.

You have failed to show the person doing the redistribution. You have failed to show how this person accesses the bank accounts of the middle class and how this person deposits the stolen funds into the bank accounts of the rich. Until you can give us the who and the how, your claims of redistribution are bogus propaganda.

 

Another one who reads into what I say far too much. See my post 703. The idea is to get the middle class growing again as it once did. Taxation will not do that. Do you really believe if you tax the top 10% at a 90% tax rate, that will get the middle class growing again? Taxing them more will help the poor move up into the middle class and taxing them more will help the middle class move up to the rich so they can be taxed at 90% or whatever rate.

A strong and improving economy would help more people than whatever tax rate is applied.

 

I agree, however, creating jobs programs so there are more people employed, which puts upward pressure on wages, cutting taxes on the middle class, increasing their ability to leverage higher incomes does, and some of that costs money that can be paid for with higher taxes on the top 10%, 1%, and 0.1%.

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You're the one who brought up the hypothetical. I simply modified it to make it more relevant to the current situation. But I can see why you'd avoid answering it.

See my post above. A strong and improving economy would help. To get a strong and improving economy, we need to get more of money to the people who spend it.

 

Why would I need to do that?

"Failed" implies I had some obligation or need to do something. I have no need to explain " how the rich gain access to the bank accounts of the middle class and remove the money." I've never claimed they did that.

They are taking from the middle class in the manner I described.

Not at all. See above.

 

I see. So you are abandoning your claim that wealth is being redistributed. Fine.

 

You don't see it at all, obviously. Blinded by your own straw man, no doubt. I have abandoned nothing.

 

I think we basically agree and are stuck on different words which seems we are miles apart. I have no problem with taxing the top 1% or 10% more. Although increasing their tax rate does not always and most of the time cause them to pay more. They can afford CPAs and tax attorneys and used loop holes and deductions to where that increase means little or nothing. We need to revamp the entire tax code system.

I am all for increase possibilities, for things that work in increasing the middle class and improving upward mobility. I just do not believe that can be accomplished with increased rates. Although increased rates may be needed for the safety net.

So how do we get that money to the people who need to spend it? Taxation of the rich handing them a few hundred dollars with the instructions to spend it? Back when we had a growing middle class and forgive me for waxing on the past, our economy was industrial based. We made goods, things and sold them here and overseas. Our economy has changed from industrial to service. We now buy most of our goods from overseas instead of selling good to overseas markets. We use to make most of all our clothes, shoes, electronics, cars, you name it here in the good old USA. Now we buy most of those things from overseas.

Now instead of working in an Auto plant, a steel factory, where good money was paid to the employees. Those jobs are gone. What do we have, high tech, medical and McDonalds. How do we, in a service economy get high paying or at least good paying jobs back? That I am at a lost. The days of moving off the farm into the city to get a high paying job in a factory are over.

I still do not think taxation will bring back those jobs or produce jobs akin to them. I do not think taxation will develop a good economy. Taxation may provide incentives, but that is all. As for me, as long as I am improving my life and that of my family, I don't care what others make.

 

The reality is that it is not whether they worked in an auto plant or a XMart that determined the higher wages workers got a generation ago. The guys on the assembly lines could be low skilled workers just as the workers at the "Mart." If it came down to solely a matter of what the supply and demand for an individual labor was, the guys working at the auto plant would never have made those higher wages (as a group) that lead to the great growth of the middle classes and, consequently, our economy.

The difference was the workers on an assembly line were represented by unions that leverage the value of labor to the business as a unit, not individual workers, and thus were able to leverage much higher wages for their workers. The workers at the "Marts" do not have representational organization, for a number of different reasons, not the least of which IMO has been a policy and publicity campaign of hostility towards unions by RW media and politicians (and some unions abuses haven't helped either).

But I've spelled out other things I think the Govt can do to beef up the middle classes. Expand job opportunities with works programs. The more people working, the less the supply and therefore higher "price" or wage for labor. Increase the minimum wage. Apply penalties for outsourcing, or at least don't make it advantageous. Cut middle class taxes by lowering FICA taxes they pay. And empower unions to leverage better wages.

 

I pretty much agree. Unions helped and there were abuses. Unions drove Eastern Airlines out of business, but that was between the union and the owners of Eastern. Both sides could have come to an agreement, but neither would budge.

I suppose you have more faith in government than what I do. But I remember good or better times when government did little. Perhaps it was just one of those things, who knows. I just received this from Gallup. It may or may not interest you.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/182423/p...utm_content=morelink&utm_campaign=syndication

On tax fairness, I do not think it is fair. There are way too many ways to get around paying what one should.

 

When times are good you don't need a lot of Govt intervention. Just to prevent abuses and excesses.

Interesting.

I certainly agree tax reform is called for.

 

Your Step 1, 2, 3 is so laughably immature as to be nearly psychotic.

You have given no answers in your steps. You just claimed that there was some magic 'lobbying', and viola! all of a sudden the 'wealthy' got more wealthy and the rest didn't.

You've provided nothing illegal; you've provided no details.

That's not how it works - but tell me, since you've deluded yourself into such a completely irascible fugue: how did that happen in the 1940's? Because the income percentages were the same then too, according to your own chart.

Go ahead, Step 1, 2, 3.

 

Remember that the top marginal tax rate in the 1950's you were so happy about was above 90%.

THAT is what taxes were doing in the time you praise for upward mobility!

So, the real point about taxes is that there is no evidence that gigantic tax cuts for the wealthy improved the lot of middle America.

In fact, you need to pony up some evidence that those gigantic tax cuts helped someone other than the very rich.



Beyond that, federal income tax rates for middle America have not been significantly decreased since the 1950s. In fact, the numbers game doesn't allow that to happen - there are simply too many people in what we consider to be middle class range to allow for their taxes to be cut without significant INCREASES somewhere else - and God forbid that the ultra wealthy go back to even a fraction of the HELL of the 1950's - right?

So, this whole idea that rich people are being taxed in order to pay off middle America is just plain ignorance.

 

I propose we go back to the tax structure of the 1950's as it was an important part of a system that you point to as being successful.

 

If you're trying to claim a gutting of the middle class, then you should using different charts, like a chart displaying the number of people in each class. That oughta be fun.

Second: you're looking to blame the wealthy - again - but you aren't blaming Keynesianism itself? Or liberal economic or social policy in general?

How exactly did it become much less expensive to move manufacturing overseas? Do you think that wasn't a consequence of inflating our costs of living via monetary expansion also?

I'll ask again: what do you think happens when we stupidly follow monetary policy which artificially drives up our costs of production beyond the costs available overseas?

And you think it's about taxes? You think the middle class is shrinking because of taxes???????

How idiotic must one be to think that?

Or worse yet: how evil one must be to pump that propaganda and wage a hate-based war, turning fellow Americans against one another?

Disgusting liberals.

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What misguided pap. You claim that the wealthy paid far more, but they didn't. Post for us what the wealthiest paid in taxes in the 1950's. Show us exactly what the top marginal rate of 91% (I thought it was 94% at its zenith) actually netted in collections.

Go ahead. Your liberal religion seems to have a whole lot of untruths at its core. Let's see you assertion one as true.

 

I'm calling you out again, or you can wallow in your rank hypocrisy. Please tell us all about how that 90+% actually collected taxes.

I'll give you a hint: it didn't. The amount collected from our economy in taxes is not a number which varies very much. Ask Iriemon to post it for you. He won't, because he'll be scared to combat the ramifications of exposing that truth.

Here's what your stupid 90+% top rate did: it drove investment money into shelters, where it was immune from taxation.

Oh! You didn't know about the tax shelters that existed when that 91% rate was in force? You didn't know that Uncle Sam didn't collect the money, but that what happened instead was that our economy slowed because people weren't investing their money, but protecting it, and hiding it in things like art and off-shore accounts?

I suggest you Read More, Will.

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Whose definition of FAIR should we be using?

How much should one pay in taxes?

 

Your Step 1, 2, 3 is so laughably immature as to be nearly psychotic. [/quote]

Yeah? You don't think the rich and powerful buy politicians with their campaign contributions and sponsor "news" outlets promoting their interest and use their influence to buy votes that enrich them?

I'll let others decide whose views are laughable. I don't think they are mine.

The middle class and poor don't have the resources to bribe politicians.

Where did I say anything was illegal?

No of course not. Folks with money never contribute to campaigns expecting favors in return.

Sheesh. Some people are so naive.

 

No, those charts I use work fine. They show that the bottom 90% of Americans was getting about 65% of the nation's income in before the Reagan "trickle down" revolution and about 50% now.

Blam Kenynes for what?

There workers get paid a lot less.

If you devalue your currency, the relative cost of goods produced elsewhere goes up.

I've identified several reasons, tax policy among them.

Why?

LMAO! Classic.

 

It's THEIR wealth. Get it through your HEAD.

Your rant is STUPID. You laud a period of time between WWI and 1981 that you consider fantastic, but all you're doing is celebrating that the wealthy didn't seemingly do very much; that some mystical level of income percentages met your idea of what is good.

Of course, those percentages were obviously an anomaly, considering that the more normalized levels have now been repeated from the 1940's.

My ability to become a billionaire doesn't change your ability to become a billionaire, but that is literally your argument.

You are trying to claim that every time someone succeeds at becoming a billionaire, someone else by definition got hurt in the process. That is asinine laughable psychosis, and you've never gotten even near establishing that as true.

The factor that caused the spread is Keynesianism. Your vaunted ideology blew up the money supply, and created the increased spread between the wealthiest and the poorest.

But you haven't made any headway at all in explaining exactly how our poor are worse off. I don't see it at all, considering the sheer number of them that have just about every creature comfort everyone else does.

Today's poor live far better than even the upper middle class of the 1950's. All you care about is that the wealthy are doing better than you want, and you care because of your greed and jealousy.

Heal thyself.

 

And they also show Americans getting 65% in the past too, a fact that you've obviously not figured out a way to defeat. Wealthy people will always be wealthy. They are by definition the best at growing wealth; that's what makes them what they are.

And your money supply explosion - a topic to which you seem allergic - magnifies it 1000 fold.

I've written it enough. Being obtuse doesn't portray your side well.

Yes. Brilliant. And their cost of living is...?

Genius! And if you have artificially inflated the value of your currency, what happens to the relative cost of goods produced elsewhere?

No, you haven't identified reasons; you've assigned baseless blame. You are blaming tax policy - stupidly, and lying through omission about the realities of past marginal rates and the shelters and deductions which countered them - and you never actually explained how increasing taxes on wealthy people can do anything other than make the Government bigger, and make the wealthy less productive.

Obtuse, and asked and answered.

Your posts are getting more useless.

 

They only got it because it was redistributed to them thanks in part to "trickle down" policies.

I disagree with your opinion. IMO, your the one ranting and making incoherent arguments. It's the "take you hands off of my stack" syndrome.

Why were they "of course an anomoly" for 35 years?

Sure it does. If you get rich by making big profits because you can pay your workers crapping wages, you're getting rich by suppressing their wages.

That is exactly what has happened over the past 35 years. Wages have stagnated while corporate profits skyrocketed.

No, I'm claiming that in general, the rich have gotten richer thanks in part to tax policies that have favored them and other policies that have suppressed the wages workers get.

Nonsense. We had Keynes theories for decades before inequality started skyrocketing in 1981.

Something else happened that year.

I've amply showed how the middle/poorer classes have not shared in the prosperity and growth they helped produce over the past 35 years.

Some advances have benefitted everyone, but I disagree that is true.

I'm fine thanks.

Again, the richest 1% are now getting 20% of the nation's income and 40% of the nation's wealth, double since the Reagan "trickle down" revolution.

How much more of the nation's income and wealth do you think the 1% should get?

 

It was YOU who was lauding the 1950s.

Now, you're saying tax policy was slowing our economy.

Good old days of expansion and getting ahead? Bad old days of slowed economy?

What will be your story in your NEXT post?

 

You've been extremely light on the details, and not at all convincing to anyone who isn't already deluded by the hatred of success which is liberal at its core.

Cronyism is an enemy insofar as it creates imbalances in competition. If you have examples of it, stop demonizing an entire class of people and start focusing on specific people and groups to blame.

If you can't, you're just a propaganda wing of the left.

In most cases, the same Government you laud as HAVING to HAVE more TAXES from The WEALTHY is the same thing which is causing all these problems, right??

But there, you are, wanting to build yet another layer; another safety net, another BS supposed way for Government to get more money to stop....what?

Government? RIDICULOUS.

They have votes. Perhaps their votes would mean more if you didn't constantly propose giving the Government more money with which to ignore those votes.

Ah! So this whole big thing is totally legal, and very general, eh? Good job. You've done nothing to make your case, but instead you want to jam your big intrusive fist into the wallets of EVERYone who you consider "wealthy".

Are they ALL guilty of something, Iriemon, or don't you care? You even-handed FAIR liberal?

I'll say. You actually think that giving the Government more money with which to become even more influential and coveted to force Cronyism will actually solve the ability of the Government to become more influential and coveted to force Cronyism.

Brilliant. No, really.

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Uh, no it wasn't. That was Iriemon. He said that income was supposedly 'balanced' then, and we need to return to it. You may want to Read More, Will.

Now, you're saying tax policy was slowing our economy.

Certainly more cogent than yours.

Read More, Will. Post less.