Fixing Inequality through Taxes

Inequality is a big problem in this country and I found a cool new website that shows how big a problem this is. Between 1981 and 2000 incomes grew by 18,000 dollars on average. The problem is that the bottom 90% took only 15% of economic growth, and the top 10% took 85% of economic growth.

Things were not always this way. From 1932-1981 incomes grew by $31,000. The bottom 90% shared 70% of that growth while the top 10% took in a comfortable 30%.

So that changed? Before Ronald Reagan, we had progressive taxes but we made them more and more progressive for higher and higher incomes with the very top tax bracket for the super-rich being about 90% tax. Reagan changed this by making the top tax bracket for a much smaller income and made it only 28%. Of course tax loopholes greatly reduced this amount, but these taxes encourages employers not to give most of their wage increases to the managers and CEOs. We need taxes like this again.

http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/who-gains/#/?start=1981&end=2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics

 

Like Hell it is.

 

Big govt is why we have inequality so how about getting rid of big govt..

 

Why do you say that? Europe has more government than we do but their inequality is smaller. Inequality was about has high as now in the 1920's when big government was far smaller than it was now, or in the 1930's - 1970's when inequality was low in America. Don't believe me? Here are a couple figures:



As you can see, no correlation.

 

Inequality is not a big problem.

Whenever anyone is asked to explain why it is bad and what harm it does they are at a loss to answer. It all boils down to some people being jealous or envious of anothers success.

We need no progressive taxes at all

 

I just showed that it was a problem. In the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's 70% of economic growth went to the bottom 90%, now, only 15% goes to the bottom 90%. How is that not a problem? Not surprisingly median wages have stagnated for several decades.
http://finance.townhall.com/columni.../2012/08/12/men_women_income_part_2/page/full
View attachment 33704

 

Envy, jealousy, entitlement and personal responsibility are the real problems. Liberals are always about getting to the root causes, fix these, especially personally responsibility and the rest will fix itself.

 

The answer is simple, inequality decreases economic activity. Money should be moving, it has to be earned and lost constantly, if 1% accumulates all the money how economy is going to work.
That is exactly why all western countries are stimulating the economy. Because 1% has grabbed all the money, and 99% does not have money to spend.

 

No you did not demonstrate that it was a problem. You merely showed that inequality exists.

You cannot demonstrate in any way that inequality harms anyone. If I make a living and another man makes more than I do it does me no harm whatsoever regardless of whether he makes a million dollars or one dollar more than me. It does not take from me or harm me in any way. Nor am I owed a living by anyone so even if I am not employed it is my problem not the other guys.

Once again the only complaint you have is based on envy.

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Wrong because the one percent merely has a lot of it not all of it. Your scenario requires the absolute of all wealth owned by one or a few which can never happen.

This is why you cannot show how simple inequality causes any harm.

 

Some people are willing to work hard, educate themselves, and raise children to do the same. Some people don't like to work much, don't have any problem being on gov't assistance in the many forms that it is available, and raise children to do the same. You can't change these facts, and as much as you want to find a way to create income equality, it cannot possibly exist because of these reasons. You also cannot hold the higher earners responsible for the lower earners.

If you want to improve the economy, you do so by bringing the bottom half up, not the top half down. (the problem with that is that everyone wants to improve or change the way they are living).

 

Inequality is a big problem so the leftist are going to tax smart people until they are as stupid as those who voted for Obamacare.

 

No it's not. ENVY is a big problem in this country. People's complaints about inequality in America in 2015 are the very definition of first world problems. If you have a flip phone and you're mad that somebody else has an Iphone, that's not inequality. It's envy.

 

Although this country does have a major problem with inequalify, you cannot fix it with taxation. Inequality shows how efficient or inefficient our economy is. The more efficient it is, the greater chance inquality would increase over time.

If you really want to fix inequality, then you have to make the economy less efficient regardless of the taxation policy.

 

I have a better idea: line the top 1% son of bee stings up in the street, and then we shoot them. Take whatever they have. Why shoot them you say? So they won't be pulling all those strings and fighting back with their influences and lawyers and lobbyists.

What ya say, Comrade?

 

Everything is SMALLER. The live in tiny apartments. The drive tiny cars or ride bicycles. The have tiny futures.

MOVE! GTF OUT!

 

While the have better living quality at the same time. Bigger and more is not always better.

 

Absolutely! One just has to extrapolate to the extreme to see how an economy would work, in which one person has everything and the rest has nothing: It wouldn't because there would be no economy.

Right now, however, we are getting to the point where inequality is already impeding economic progress. The ones who need to spend don't have enough money to spend, and the ones who don't need to spend have so much more than enough that they are just hoarding. That's why aggregate demand remains low, which is a killer in a consumption-drive economy. There are only so many yachts/cars/mansions a rich person wants. Once they have them, additional money is hoarded.

 

Its nothing of the sort its a specious liberal talking point based on envy.

And the problem is you take these HUGE swaths of time and only compare the end points.

And guess what the NET EFFECTIVE TAXE RATE HARDLY CHANGED.

What utter nonsense, wages and salaries companies pay are not based on tax loopholes.

The highest earners pay the most in tax revenues to this government than at any time in history. They pay the largest share of income taxes than at any time in our history. The bottom half pay virtually no in come taxes while the top 1% pays almost 40% the top 20% pays 80%. So if that is not progressive enough what would be?

And where did you get the idea its the governments job to "equalize" income and to use the tax system to do so?

 

Why on earth would you want to make our economy less efficient?

 

The federal reserve, a classic liberal big govt organization which is held in such high regard by liberals, is the main cause of inequality. Liberals love inflation and inflation is a large cause of inequality. Printing money, which liberals again love, is the most recent cause of inequality. The rich own assets which bubble up due to fed actions, the poor just get to pay more for things. Govt is the cause, not the cure. Higher taxes will again kill the poor by destroying the economy. Nobody is going to make your life better for you. YOU have to get off you ass and do it yourself and stop looking for excuses for being greedy and lazy. Thinking govt is going to make your life better is ignorant, childish, greedy(the very definition of liberalism)

 

So how are envy and and a lack of personal responsibility increasing inequality?

 

Not sure why it is wrong, to me it is straight forward. If government creates policies that allow 90% of money to concentrate in the hand of 1% of people, how money supposed to be moved around.
One percent of richest people do not spend money, because they already have everything. What they do they buy politicians and lawmakers, to make more laws that allows those money to be concentrated in fewer hands.

 

Go! If you're willing to give up the top end for a guaranteed low middle you must move.

 

Businesses are the factories of income distribution. So if 85% of new economic growth is going to only 10% of people, it means that businesses are giving 85% of their new profits to 10% of their top paid employees. There are exceptions, like income that is not from wages directly, but the vast majority of income is from wages.

Something is amiss, Americans have gotten more productive yet since the Reagan Era, their earnings have not risen along with that productivity. Is that fair?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/01/a_graph_im_trying_to_understan.html

Lets say that company A used to give 70% of the it's new earnings to 90% of people and the top 10% got 30% of those earnings. But then things changed. Now the top 10% get 85% of those earnings and the bottom 90% are left with just 15%. Would you claim that the bottom 90% in the company are not being harmed at all by these changes, and have no right to ask for a bigger share of the new profits?

New economic productivity is not just produced by high-earning businessmen, and top earning stock investors, it is produced by the entire economy as a whole. So why is it fair that these top earning people should take almost all of the economic growth, even to the point where wages have stagnated, and progress is non-existent for most Americans?

 

Those who do not take responsibility for their own actions and are envious of others tend to blame others for their situation instead of trying to improve it.