The Classic Strawman: But 47% Don't Pay Taxes!

Good for you.

You asserted that "the only major difference between the "rich" and the "middle class" is self control" as part of an argument that the "rich" are already taxed enough. Which I guess means you're OK with guys like Mitt paying a 14% tax rate which is probably lower than the marginal rate your family pays.

What census report says that? I've never seen such a report. Cite to the report, please.

I would theorize that the angst is that super rich guys like Mitt are paying a lower rate of tax than many families making not much more than yours.

 

I have, actually - and below that, even.

So why don't you tell me what your point is, if you can't seem to muster doing so for Mystriss?

 

I don't get that. How does the law prevent you from having your income deferred for a few years?

... although I agree our tax code is designed to be unfair. Any code that demands a small minority of citizens pay for the services we all consume certainly demonstrates favoritism.

 

It's about economics, clear and simple. Wealthy people tend to be much more efficient at saving their wealth and making it grow. Poor people tend to be much more efficient at spending every dollar they get. Rich people get wealthier when MORE people have money to give them.

Basically what we have in this country, is the Govt pumping money in to the economy, the wealthy people sucking it all up, then the Govt having to pump more in the economy.

Tax the wealthy, reduce taxes on the spenders, and this economy would once again grow like it used to. The disparity of wealth we have in this country is eating us alive. The 1% are waiting for the 99% to get money and the 99% is waiting on the 1% to give them money. That is why the 99% has to rely on the Govt.

And by the way, this is purely economic speak... I am not jealous of wealthy people, I actually like the wealthy much more than the poor. So this class warfare crap gets annoying after a while.

 

The problem with the left is that they believe economics is a zero sum game. It's hard for us conservatives to understand them sometimes as they hold incorrect assumptions as to how the world works.

When they say "The rich keep getting richer", we think "So what?". But they think it's obvious that means the poor are getting poorer. Even if that is completely untrue they believe it.

Maybe that's why showing that our incomes across the board have been rising has been so shocking to them.

 

Conservatives like JHFFMN deal specifically in philosophy. No credible economist in the entire world actually thinks like this. This is a very uneducated post.

 

Which part would you say is uneducated? I'd love to hear you elaborate. (so that I can make fun of you for being wrong AGAIN)

Anyway, why do you always use appeals to authority when making an argument?

 

Relatively the poor are making a lot less than they did before compared to the rich. The GINI index which measures this relationship has gone in to levels that have not been seen since right before the great depression. In fact our disparity of wealth is worse than many 3rd world countries. There is nothing good economically speaking that happens when the rich get too rich. Otherwise the Govt will have to supplement the poor even more than they do now.

Not that you'll understand any of this, but just thought I'd let other people know.

And a lot of uneducated people make fun of others when in reality they are just making themselves look like fools...

 

No one wants money anymore than they want poker chips. If the solution was just to give everyone money we might as well hand each person a printing press and be done with it.

Money is exchanged in trade. It's an IOU for future value and it's the value people want. Your boss gives you money because he wants the value of your work, but doesn't have any value at the moment to offer you -- so he gives you an IOU in green backs. You trade that IOU to the milkman because he has valuable milk but doesn't want the work you do.

The problem isn't we've "run out of IOUs" and need to "redistribute" them. The wealthy in this country aren't waiting for the poor to get more IOUs, we're waiting for them to offer something worth exchanging for the IOUs we already have piled up.

 

100% false. Producers do not care where your IOU's came from. This is kind of the nonsense economics that is destroying this country. Money does not stop after it is spent.

The top 1% have that money for a reason and it's not because other people provided a service for them, it's because other people gave them their dollars.

Go leave a bag of $1,000 in cash in the middle of the street. The economy would never know.

 

This sentence doesn't actually mean anything. The poor are either making more or less or the same amount. There is no such thing as relatively making less when compared to someone else.

The rest of your argument seems predicated on the above quote being a rational thought.

 

Exactly my point. You don't even know what relativity is.

 

Was that a rebuttal?

My purchasing power over time is not relative to your purchasing power. I can either afford a better life than I could yesterday, or I can't. Your standard of living is irrelevant.

 

To this response...

Yes it is a rebuttal. But you would not understand that, lol. Embarrassing!

 

Didn't say it stopped. If my Uncle Sam hands me a negotiable IOU out of charity or because I promised him something in return, I might trade it again to you for a bottle of milk. The IOU is still good. You might trade it to Bob for a loaf of bread. But if no one has anything to offer Bob, then he's stuck holding Sam's empty promise. He's out the loaf of bread and sitting on a pile of IOUs that he can't eat. Taxing those IOUs away from Bob, doesn't change anything -- he's still the one who provided a loaf of bread and has yet to get any value for it.

But you're right, the wealthy didn't get that money because the poor provided a service for them (it's the opposite). They didn't get that money because the poor made a gift of it either. People can gift an IOU, but more often they require value for money. The guy who finds himself in debt, consumed more value that he provided. The guy sitting on the pile of IOUs did the opposite -- he's the one who provided more value than he consumed. Taxing away his IOUs doesn't change that, it just ensures he never get's the value he was promised.

*shrug* If you drop a bigger bag, the economy will notice more.

 

Personally I do not base my "happiness" on what anyone else pays in taxes... I truly feel sorry for those who think that taxing someone else more will some how make them happy.

Anyway, no actually, I argue raising taxes on the wealthy will only give the government more money to waste. In addition a tax break will NOT increase the poor and middle classes wealth because of their poor spending habits. - "The only thing separating the wealthy from the middle class is self control" - in other words, investing their new found "extra" money rather than buying the latest smart phone, or that widescreen plasma tv, or shiny new cars, or a bigger house.

To clarify, I meant "according to the census reports" as an overall using various sources which is why I used the terms "is like" $X in my argument, as opposed to the way you chose read it - aka "according to this one specific census report..."

In any event, here's some sourced actual numbers:

"The US government considers an annual income of $21,756 to be the poverty line for a family of four." is cited from here http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Societ...re-to-ranks-of-the-poor-as-poverty-rate-jumps

"The president has been unequivocal in his support for letting the Bush-era tax rates expire on “the wealthy” — defined as individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and households earning more than $250,000 a year."
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279547/democrats-define-rich-andrew-stiles

Therefore using sourced numbers the "middle class" can be defined as making between $22k/y and $250k/y (household for the rich since the low end poor amount is for a family)

So the upper middle class makes 11 times what the lower middle class makes and therefore the lower middle class should get after the upper middle class to give them more money.

The actual numbers were not my point, however. My point was that class warfare based on irrelevant percentages is illogical...


To expand further on my "opinion" here, I put forth the "Relative Income Hypothesis" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_income_hypothesis) which is basically the "keeping up with the Jones" theory. -- The "middle class" is likely to never be "happy" with their standard of living because they will always want what the neighbor has, thereby driving up the perceived standard of what is "middle class."


AKA even if we changed it today and the middle class paid no taxes and had that extra disposable income to spend, they would eventually feel that "we, the middle class, need more money." Which, along the lines with the theory that the rich "hold down" the poor and middle class, would then lead to "the rich should pay more taxes so the middle class can get tax returns."

For example: Poor in this country = 89% not going hungry, 49% owning a home, 80% having air conditioning in their residence, 75% having a car or 31% 2 cars, 97% owning a television, 50% having 2 or more televisions, 78% have a DVD or VCR player, 63% having cable/satalight TV, 89% have a microwave oven, over 50% have a stereo, more than 24% have an automatic dishwasher. -- Source: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/08/how-poor-are-americas-poor-examining-the-plague-of-poverty-in-america )



If this is POOR in the US today, then what is it about the middle classes standard of living that makes them find it so horrible?

 

So tell me one thing Bob wants right now that someone will not make for him?

Everything you said is purely hypothetical. Realistically what is it in America that someone wants that someone will not produce?

This is absolutely a very uneducated comment. No one cares if you are in debt or not. They care about money. They produce goods for money, they do not care how you got that money. You are making a MASSIVE assumption that the person who produces goods with money made through Govt spending can not get what he wants, therefore it is not productive. That is 100% false. Everyone wants money in America because if you can get it someone will produce what you want for it.

Basic economics here. What you are advocating is destroying America. I wish you didn't hate America!!

By producing much more goods? That is a good thing!

 

You are exactly correct, and smart. It won't do any good though, they will call it re-distribution of wealth all day long. That's their deflection.
You and me know that is not true. It's just going back to the tax rates that were in effect before Bush decided to give the rich a break, when the economy was actually doing alright.

 

Your post is a classic Obama-style strawman. You allege a bogus statement and then refute it. The statement that's been made is that 47% of the households pay no income tax. That's true so liberals pretend the statement is that 47% of Americans pay no taxes.

Pitiful really. The strawman is second only to the teleprompter.

 

I posted the links earlier, effective tax rates are common and posted by many sources - govt and otherwise - in many places.

If, instead of spending the few minutes you took to write your post, you had spent those minutes on the massive data base called the internet, you would know the truth.

Instead of goofing off on this forum for the next 30 minutes, read and get educated. It does wonders.

 

He's very stubborn and doesn't like reading.

 

I'm glad you feel that way! So you won't mind that we raise taxes on the richest and cut them for the poorer.

Thanks for sharing your baseless unsupported opinion. I disagree.

So you took other information and opinions from other sources and falsely claimed that it was based on a U.S. Census report. Got it.

We can keep that in mind as to other claims you make.

 

The effective tax rate on a billionaire or trust fund baby or Mitt Romney living off investements is 15%.

Less than the effective rate, and certainly the marginal rate, many middle class families pay.

I don't take your unsupported say-so as the truth. Whether other want to is up to them.

Funny, you are the one who cannot back up his claims.

 

To the contrary, it is the conservative who demand we cut trillions in spending, which will put hundreds of thousands more on the unemployment lines at a time when the economy is far from full capacity.

Liberals understand it is not a zero sum game, and that increased taxes couple with spending restraint, not cutting, will get us to a surplus budget again.

Like it did 1993-2000.

 

Yes, and the top 50% pay all those taxes when they buy things as well. There is something else they pay on top of all that....INCOME TAX! So, what is your point? How is this considered a straw man? It isn't. There is no point in your thread at all.