Further Light and Knowledge

At a holiday party recently, I was discussing the state of the union with an older friend of the family. I was explaining that it doesn't make sense to me that someone who makes ten times what I do pays less in taxes. That I support that they raise the capital gains tax to where it was ten years ago. When we had a surplus.

I think my friend agrees with me, but wanted to strengthen my argument (because he's a retired lawyer, and also just like that). He asked me why they should pay more. He said, many of these people worked really hard for their money. He named a handful of local businesses, and I had to agree. Some of the local millionaires worked really hard for what they have. They didn't have ivy league scholarships, some may not have attended college.

Why is it fair for them to not keep what they earn?

I brought up people who inherit their wealth...but there's no way to tell the difference, really.

So help me out, wise FLAKers. (hopefully we can keep this discussion civil??). Why is it fair (or unfair) for millionaires to pay what they owe?

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That last part assumes they owe it. However, they don't under GW Bush/ BH Obama tax cuts on the rich.

I go back and forth on this issue. On one hand..

1. I'm never going to be a 1%er so WTF do I care?
2. Screw the rich the poor are hungry. Feeding people trumps the morality of taking from someone who has more than he/she needs.
3. A great way to infuse money into the economy is to take it from the "haves" and spread it around so everyone benefits.
4. These people are the so called "job creators" but they've had these tax cuts and we haven't seen any jobs.

On the other hand...

1. They pay much much much more in a dollar amount vs a percentage so the question should be asked, "How much should one person pay to be an American citizen?" Where is the cut off? At what point has the person met his civil obligations to pay for government?
2. We are paying a shit ton of taxes as it is. There is nothing in the last 50 years of federal spending that tells me that giving the govt more money will dig us out of debt and balance spending. In fact, the opposite is true.
3. The money we are talking about (rich paying more in taxes) is a mouse fart compared to our debt we actually owe. The idea of taking from the rich makes for a great bumper sticker but isn't a solution by any means.


...my 2 cents

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All views expressed by jahedgpeth are the sole property of jahedgpeth inc. and subject to change by edit without notice.

First of all, the middle and working classes work just as hard for their money--as do the working poor. Why is it fair for THEM to not keep what they earn?

Second, nobody makes it just on hard work alone. There are all kinds of structural things in place that make it possible for these people to succeed--mostly governmental structures. Infrastructure, R&D (internet anyone), educational opportunities, a trained workforce (free education for workers), etc. They benefit immensely from social structures paid for by ALL of us. And of course, many of them don't actually PRODUCE things. They couldn't do it without their work force. This is not to say they don't work hard. But they are not (and NO ONE is) some sort of Randian demi-gods who bestow all the benefit on society.

And of course, inherited money is a whole other can of worms.

That's my $.02.

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The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less. ~ Arthur Miller

I'll note right up front that I include a lot of my beliefs in my answer, and they conflict directly with the Libertarian Dreams and Objectivist Fantasies of much of our nation right now.

There are a lot of public commons in the United States which contribute to the economic success we've enjoyed as a nation up until now. It would never be economically profitable for a company to create the national highway infrastructure or all the bridges and tunnels. It is not economically profitable to provide universal education, especially to disadvantaged or special needs children. The national forests, wildlife refuges, parks, and waterfowl breeding grounds cannot be maintained at a profit. This also includes the agencies that ensure clean air and water, worker safety, and food quality. It includes the United States military, the police agencies, and the fire departments. And so on and so on.

Why should the wealthy pay more in real terms and more in percentage terms than the working poor and middle classes? Because they use more of the commons. It can be justified based on use.

An average person might drive on the roads with a car or two to get groceries and take their kids to soccer games, but the owners of Walmart benefit from thousands of trucks making hundreds of trips each year on the roads in order to deliver the products and they don't have to pass on the real-world costs of building and maintaining those roads to the consumers because it's part of our commons that they're exploiting for profit on the front end and they ought to be paying something for it on the back end.

Lehman Brothers didn't have to pay to educate the thousands of people who helped them rig the nation's economy for economic collapse. A large percentage of them got all or part of their educations publicly and the private colleges they attended were often subsidized with public money in the form of low-interest loans and grants. Lehman got their pick of the benefits of the commons without having to pay the up front costs. In the end, they exploited the educational system more than students and families did.

There are huge banking and entertainment firms that have teams of lawyers and they make enormous financial gains through lawsuits. Those courts, court officers, judges and enforcement officials don't cost these firms much. Their salaries and facilities are public goods, and the average person uses the judicial branch of government infrequently, or never. It's not a profit center for the government and yet it's exploited daily by the wealthiest in the nation to exact judgements that benefit their pockets and often those judgements harm the lower class citizens.

Those are three examples and I could write a book about this topic. The conclusion is that the wealthiest are exploiting the commons disproportionately to the rest of the citizens and they should, in the end, be paying a disproportionate amount of the costs - because they couldn't have gotten where they are without the public commons.

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- CV Rick
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I'm fairly libertarian but I don't necessarily think we should do away with governmental regulatory agencies. I do however think many of the functions of government could be done better at a state level rather than a federal level.
I think there would be less waste and less corruption if the voters were closer to the laws being written. The fact that we have 535 people in Washington making rules and regulations for every single aspect of the lives of the 300,000,000 remaining people in this country is absolutely insane and a recipe for disaster.
IMO, the system needs an over haul. We don't need to get rid of governmental regulatory agencies. We need to let states decide, within the scope of the constitution, what laws/regulations they want to enforce. Some agencies, by their own nature, will of course have to function on a federal level but items like healthcare and education would qualify for state run programs in my mind.
Yes, I know this will never happen I freely admit that libertarianism is the political equivalent of plans made in a pot smoke filled van at 4 am on a Saturday night. It all sounds great in theory and rarely has any history of real world application.
But a guy can dream....



All vehicles (at least in Texas) pay for registration tags, taxes on fuel and taxes at the point of sale of the vehicle. The more trucks you have on the road = the more taxes you are paying for the privilege of having trucks on the road.

The stores are paying taxes on the profits they are making as well as property taxes depending on the size and function of their location.

All of this tax revenue goes towards paying for the roads, police, fire and so on and someone like Wal-Mart is paying (and should pay) a much larger share for the public resources they consume.

We could raise the taxes on their profits but then we will adversely affect growth within that company thereby crippling its ability to add jobs through new store locations, purchase of equipment and so on.

I'm not catching the point here. Are we saying that companies should pay more in taxes because they hire people who have had an education subsidized by the government? On a side note, IMO, subsidized education is a problem because it creates a system, much like in healthcare, where people don't care about the costs (because someone else is paying for it) and therefore have an inflated price tag due to lack of competitive pricing.
To your point: I disagree with what you are saying. To me, the person's education is between that person and whomever gave them the money to go to school. That responsibility shouldn't get carried over to a future employer. If we made some sort of law stating that businesses would have to pay higher taxes based on student loans of new hires then we would have a situation where businesses would avoid hiring people with high student loans. The people who take out high student loans are the low and middle class. Thus, you would be screwing them indirectly.

Businesses pay court fees when using the legal system and those fees are higher based on usage. This idea of "make enormous financial gains through lawsuits" is really a blade that cuts two ways because they are also likely to make enormous financial losses through lawsuits as well.


The tax code needs to be reworked.

I'm not smart enough to do it but I can see that it desperately needs to be done when companies like GE (owns 1/2 of NBC and ironically the liberal think tank MSNBC) paid NOTHING in taxes for 2010 despite making 14.2 BILLION in profit. Also, (what should REALLY make you scratch your head) Obama appointed the GE CEO, Jeff Immelt, to serve as the chairman of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness after 2 years of saying that the tax code needs to be reworked so everyone pays a fair share.

Washington is a corrupt town. We need to take the power from the few and give it to the many. Nothing (Obama over the last 3 years is a prime example of this) will be reformed when so few control so many.

JMO

PS: (I was trying to be civil. These topics are fascinating to me and I hope no one loses their shit in this discussion. If I pissed anyone off let me give a preemptive apology: I'm sorry)

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All views expressed by jahedgpeth are the sole property of jahedgpeth inc. and subject to change by edit without notice.

jahedgpeth, I don't want to get into a back and forth nitpick on this, so I want to stay national, macro terms.

Roads - transportation infrastructure. There is no way that the local and state taxes cover the costs of building and maintaining roads. In fact it's silly to think that they do. Wal-mart, for example, avoids nearly all local and property taxes with their negotiations, which means that the real costs of local governance and infrastructure are assumed by the populace.

If the true costs were passed to consumers in fees and taxation, the burden would be unbearable on many people, especially the people who use our roadways minimally compared to corporations which send many millions of tons of freight over those same roads.

Education - if there wasn't an educated work force from which companies could pick and choose, what would corporations do? They couldn't afford the gamble of educating a thousand kids for the handful that would eventually meet their demands. It's a vital national resource and one that we're falling behind in every year compared to other nations.

Court fees - businesses don't even come close to covering the actual fees to run the judicial system. However if those fees were forced upon everyone who used the court system, very few would be able to use that branch of government to address grievances.

These and many other things are part of civilization and I continue to maintain that they are not only necessary and expensive, but there is no reason that the wealthiest and most successful shouldn't pay back in at a reasonable rate - above that which the less successful pay. No wealthy person in this nation made it on their own - - they made it because of where they live and with the use of the advantages our society provides.

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- CV Rick
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CV Rick:

I have nothing much to add that wouldn't rehash what I already posted. I understand your point of view and agree that companies like GE don't pay their fair share. I think it's absolutely criminal that this administration and congress has facilitated a tax environment where they ended up paying no taxes despite their 14 BILLION dollar profit for 2010. They are robbing the American people blind.


That said, I think its difficult to begin to put a number on "fair share". I'd like to see the data that backs up what you claim so if you ever do put it in a book I'd like to be the first to read it.

My concern is this: With "fair share" there needs to be balance so that preserving growth and jobs are part of the equation. Building new roads because we soaked big business of their profits is meaningless if there are no employees to drive on them to work every morning because they have all been laid off.

What do you think about a simplified flat tax for business at a fixed percentage with no deductions or loopholes?

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All views expressed by jahedgpeth are the sole property of jahedgpeth inc. and subject to change by edit without notice.

Perhaps you misspoke, but I read this line as a declaration that tax injustice should be laid at the feet of this administration and of this congress:



It seems that you have no interest in addressing the climate created for which we arrived at this point in time.

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- CV Rick
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No. You read that right.

What has Obama done to reverse the tax policy of just the GW Bush administration? He had a democratic majority in both the house and senate for his first 2 years. The democrats still control the senate...and yet...they haven't eliminated the loopholes that made it possible for GE to pay no taxes. Also, in December of 2010 Obama supported continuing instead of eliminating the GW Bush tax cuts on the rich like he promised in his 2008 campaign. He said he didn't want to do it but in the end he did it. No one can argue with that.

Obama is GW Bush 2.0.

I am "interested in addressing the climate". That was one of the main points of my original response up thread when I said...

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All views expressed by jahedgpeth are the sole property of jahedgpeth inc. and subject to change by edit without notice.

Perhaps the following article will help (it enlightened me)

How To Frame Yourself: A Framing Memo For Occupy Wall Street
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/19-2

Here are the bits that have helped me frame my arguments for what I believe to be fair taxation as well as help me understand the frame of reference those I disagree with are using.






If we adopt primacy of self-interest, eventually we end up with feudalism - all the wealth and power is concentrated with the lords and the serfs can muck along as best they can. Which historically leads to revolutions.

I often find myself arguing the angle that, even if one believes in the primacy of self-interest, it is in their best interests to keep the masses appeased with some bit of socialism otherwise a tipping point will be reached in which the have-nothings will outnumber the have-somes and have-alots. Then, in a democracy, you will end up with a wild swing to a highly Socialist Government (e.g. Venezuela).

That is the crazy in the system... the haves will only be satisfied with more until they have taken it all. The system then crashes and the have-it-alls lose it all (sometimes even their necks (e.g. French Revolution))

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Let us read and let us dance: two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
- Voltaire

I quickly laugh at everything, for fear of having to cry.
- Pierre de Beaumarchais

Right . . . all Obama's fault.

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- CV Rick
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No it's not all his fault but yes he isn't/hasn't lived up to his campaign promises and he isn't/hasn't done significant anything to correct the problem thus far.

It was easy for people firmly rooted on the left to see how GW Bush was screwing them over but the skills of discernment seem to be blurred when Obama is under the microscope.

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All views expressed by jahedgpeth are the sole property of jahedgpeth inc. and subject to change by edit without notice.

Oh, I want to blame a single person for all the ills of the world also. It would be so convenient.

Am I happy with everything Obama has done? No. Is he as liberal or progressive as I would like? No, but he ran as a moderate and all of his speeches and writings were that of a moderate.

I am impressed with the sheer body of work he's been able to push through, even if it hasn't been what I would've wanted in every case. It's especially impressive given the near-absolute roadblock that is the Republican Filibuster and Bills Dead in Committee. There has never been obstructionism like this in our legislative history.

But yeah, all Obama.

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- CV Rick
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Dude, I don't know if you are doing it on purpose or not but this whole "all Obama's fault" is a strawman if there ever was one.

Lame.

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All views expressed by jahedgpeth are the sole property of jahedgpeth inc. and subject to change by edit without notice.

I'm just so tired of people trying to pin the financial disaster on Obama. It's about as much his fault as the last Great Depression was FDR's fault. Yet, everything Obama has tried to do to combat this situation has been roadblocked. It's not a strawman since you seem to give the president a lot more credit, and authority, than he actually has.

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- CV Rick
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