Paying a "fair share"

No wonder you're so confused. You're completely ignorant about a basic economic concept.

I could have sworn I posted this for you before, but here it is again:

"Trickle-down economics", also referred to as "trickle-down theory", chiefly and originally in United States politics, is the idea that economic benefits provided to businesses and upper income levels, or money appropriated by government via taxation, will indirectly benefit poorer members of society when the resources inevitably "trickle down" to them.[1] The term has been attributed to humorist Will Rogers, who said during the Great Depression that "money was all appropriated for the top in hopes that it would trickle down to the needy."[2]

In more recent history, the theory is most closely identified with critics of the economic policies known as "Reaganomics" or laissez-faire. David Stockman, who as Reagan's budget director championed these cuts at first but then became skeptical of them, told journalist William Greider that the "supply-side economics" is the trickle-down idea: "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."[3][4] Political opponents of the Reagan administration soon seized on this language in an effort to brand the administration as caring only about the wealthy.[5] In the United Kingdom, the idea was also utilized by Margaret Thatcher's government and became a main plank of Thatcherism.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

In the Great Depression area, they called it the "horse and sparrow" theory. Give the horse more of the oats, and there will be more (*)(*)(*)(*) for the sparrows to eat.

Appropriate phrase. Maybe I should use that instead of "trickle down". Or maybe "tinkle down" would be about right.

 

...but I don't support taking the property of others.

 

Good for you.

 

Yup, and you were talking out your ass when you said this:

Glad we cleared that up.

 

Ya think? Appropriate response for the ass talking: "We outnumber you, and we are prepared to use violence to take your property.

Well, at least now we know what we're dealing with."

 

Deckel: "Because they are paying from a big old government-protected rent-seeking pot....and because we outnumber you 99 to one. Democracy is good like that."

Deckel: "We don't need to use violence at all. We don't acre about your property. We will take your money."

That's a lot of talk about taking other people's stuff.

 

I love the attitude that if you are prosperous, you are "taking the nation's wealth as if its something the nation earned

 

Now that is an analogy that really reflects deep thinking!

 

Yeah, it's weird. It belies a very collectivist mindset.

 

Do you suppose that the amount of thought put into Turtledude's analogy exceeds the amount put into your snarky response?

'Cuz I think the ratio is about 100:1 - and not in your favor.

 

The problem with this analogy is that when I went to college after getting out of the military in the early 1970's it was the "stoners" getting straight A's. LOL

 

That isn't a problem with the analogy. That's a problem with you using the Fallacy of Personal Experience.

And yes, I know you were joking.

 

Because they're benefiting far more.... once again the rate should be the same above the basic costs of necessities so effectively no one is paying more or less than anyone else in taxes. Today the super-wealthy pay a much lower tax rate than working Americans. The top 400 income earners in America, all with incomes of over $250 million/yr, pay an average income tax rate of 17% which is the same income tax rate paid by someone with a $90,000/yr income. Someone earning more than $90,000/yr has a higher average income tax rate than those with over $250 million/yr in income and obviously something is wrong with that.

 

Nope, I think neither reflect any intelligent thinking.

 

Same old leftist talking points. Conflating investment income with wage income is intellectually dishonest, and ignorant of the purpose for taxing them at different levels.

In addition: the same tax rate on poor and wealthy automatically adjusts for the "far more benefit" because it generates an increasing amount as the wealth generated increases.

Proportionate math generates its own definition of fairness, and you have not established how your definition of 'fair' is in any way superior - particularly since we've pursued progressive taxation for decades - to the point where the top 40% pay 98% of all taxes - and still have not improved one scintilla upon those variables which you or any liberal claimed was the purpose of graduating rates.

Keynesian monetary expansion is what creates wealth disparity; not taxes. More taxes simply inflates Government, and propagates the problem of influence peddling.

In short, your endless layers of controls and regulations to artificially create outcomes is not having its intended effect. Instead, it is bloating the Department of Redundancy Department, and bringing about Tyranny and oppression, and choking our economy, compartmentalizing winners and losers.

Which is exactly what was to be avoided, with the purported purpose of leftism.

Fail.

 

Only one problem with this line of thought. The vast majority of the poor are working Americans.

 

Then you wasted a golden opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of your ideology and intellect with a scintillating rebuttal which addresses the analogy.

Instead, you punted.

Your offense is not creative, and puts pressure on your defense.

 

Nobody actually said that. The discussion is about how to pay for the cost of government. And my point was very simple, that those who have benefitted the most from the country should pay the most to support it. Now the interesting thing in the discussion is that rather than provide other rationales for how taxation should be allocated people try to divert the discussion to the government taking earned money. Any tax system will require taking earned money, the discussion should be about how you proportion the taking.

For example you could favor every citizen paying the exact same amount. Or you could favor a flat tax on earned income, or a flat tax on all income, or a progressive tax on all income, or as I favor a flat tax on total wealth.

But no taxation is not an option assuming one has a desire to have any form of government.

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It would be a waste of intellect to attempt to rebut an analogy that makes no sense.

 

(a] Depends upon what you consider poor - which as we all know is a quickly moving goalpost.

(b] I would disagree regardless. As someone who grew up dirt poor, it is extremely difficult to be good at work, and resist character flaws while simultaneously remaining poor. I submit that the majority of our 'poor' (by anyone's measure; not just yours) aren't 'working', partly due to their character flaws; partly due to circumstances beyond their control, not all of which is a reflection of the very liberal policies conjured by leftists to solve these problems.

Few - or none - of which they actually have. Our un- and under-employment rate is much higher than is being advertised. The public is being lied to, and you need to have an interest in why to make real change.

 

Yes. Somebody did actually say that. [MENTION=17203]Iriemon[/MENTION] often uses the term "the nation's income". That is what Turtle was talking about.

A system of governance is a set of rules. Establishing rules doesn't cost anything.

 

It is either ignorant or obtuse to deny that this already happens. What is responsible is to actually confront that this is already happening, and then have a frank inward discussion on why your definition of what is 'fair' should actually be followed, considering that there are as many definitions of the word 'fair' as there are people in this world.

Which makes implementation of 'fairness' impossible.

Do you know what the top 10% pay in taxes, as a percentage of the total paid? Do you know what the bottom 50% pay? Let's discuss where your line of "fairness" ends, and "slavery" begins.

There is nothing illegitimate about that being extremely important, as taking earned money is a very personal thing. I see no one on the topic who isn't willing to address both angles simultaneously, however. It seems like you want to avoid the 'rationales' of which you speak by simply believing that your argument for them will simply be diverted.

Same rate across the board. Lose the sentiment that doing so is "unfair" because that is absurd. Flat taxation is the only real measure of fairness, because it applies the same percentage to everyone, and allows everyone who makes something of themselves in society to have more in common with everyone else, and not less in common.

Flat taxation naturally graduates the amount each individual pays as they earn more.

Your last idea is better than what he have now, at least. Much better. The level of the tax is still at issue, and the argument for how to best stimulate economic risk taking - taxing investment income at a much lower level than wage income - still needs to be discussed. Personally, I believe it is in the best interest of society to motivate someone who has accrued wealth to use it not through consumption of goods and services - as such expenditure is not self-propagating - but to invest it in other economic growth (business building, etc).

It's like having a bushel basket of pumpkin seeds. You can of course eat them, and that will fuel you. But if you take a large portion of them, and plant them, they provide fuel for far more future consumption.

It is the difference - like in business - of vertical growth, vs horizontal growth. We should promote a healthy balance of both, but that requires people letting go of the idea that investment income should be treated the same as wage income. Wage income is a necessary tool to subsist and provide the launching point to develop investment income, and everyone should be allowed to freely pursue the American Dream to attain the latter for the benefit of allowing others to begin the same process.

Agreed, but it can be argued that the US could prosper without an income tax - because we did, for more of our history than we have had an income tax.

You should carefully consider two things: (a] why it makes no sense to you, and (b] why it makes perfect sense to me, and to others as well.

 

"Trickle down" (also referred to as "supply-side economics") refers to a tax policy of reducing taxes on the wealthy to increase investments in corporations that create jobs based upon an expanding economy. The problem is that if fails for two reason.

1) Investment doesn't create economic growth - consumption creates economic growth. No matter how much is invested in enterprise if the enterprise cannot sell it's goods or services (i.e. consumption of goods and service) it goes bankrupt.

2) Based upon all investments when compared to just those that actually fund corporations only about 0.000005% of investments actually fund enterprise. In short of we round off to 1/1000th the percentage of investments that fund corporations is effectively 0%.

As president Ronald Reagan provided a limited experiment in "trickle down" (supply side) economics and it didn't work very well leaving the country in a recession but a far better example is being provided by Kansas today that has imposed "Tea Party" economics which is supply side economics in the extreme.

http://theweek.com/articles/551262/kansas-experiment-concentrated-conservatism-keeps-getting-grimmer

Sadly even with the complete failure of "trickle down" (supply side) economics in Kansas it remains the economic policy of the Republican Party.

 

You're talking about courts and police? Yes, most people would agree that those are necessary costs of government. Under the federal US system, those are primarily state powers.

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And this is a justification for taking the property of others? Are you really a libertarian?

 

it does-both are exposed to the same opportunities One works hard and takes advantage, the other does not


and lefties are reactionary-if you do better you were given more

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uh that as absolutely nothing relevant to do with what I said. You either didn't understand my point-or more likely did, and couldn't rebut it but felt a need to say something since you didn't like my point

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you are confusing benefiting with government services. you think they benefit more because they were GIVEN more which of course is complete and utter cattle dung