Me,too. They seem to be more involved in the Union than in the jobs and do some very strange things. For example, American Airlines had managed to stay out of bankruptcy while other hadn't. They asked the unions to renegotiate their deals to be closer to what they other airlines had gotten. They refused, AA went into bankruptcy and the deals the unions end up with will most likely be a lot worse than they would have been able to negotiate. Last year GM decided to close down one of the local stamping plants. They found a buyer who would keep the union but wanted all workers to be paid at the lower new-worker rate that was part of the GM Contract. All of the union people had the option to go to another GM plant and get paid full rate if they wanted to. The union refused and the GM-gypsies took off for other plants. The stamping plant closed, 400 possible jobs were lost, and the impact on the taxes of the school system and local governments was great.
I agree, as I stated above, the rich should pay SOMETHING.
The consequence of low or no tax on those of modest means allows them to buy stuff they want but don't really need, which, in turn, profits those who own the companies that make Twinkies, iPhones, 52" TV sets, and other stuff. These increased sales drive up the profit of the manufacturers (or importers) and they get taxed on their stock dividends.
The modest-income people have to pay more for the product or service to accommodate the tax their betters pay, so I guess it averages out.
Still, it is disturbing, at some level, that 50% of Americans pay no income taxes at all.
Kurt Ullman wrote in news:hoadnXpId4uPahPSnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
Doesn't seem like it.
Doesn't seem like it.
On average, perhaps. But why do you continue to refuse to acknowledge that those whose income is derived mostly, or entirely, from investments pay a lower rate than those whose income is derived mostly, or entirely, from salary or wages?
Nt quite true, because the rich actually buy more goods and services. And those goods and services are also far more expensive than what ordinary folks buy...
That is a whole different story which may or may not be true My parents arrived in North America with a baby and $200 60+ years ago They died millionaires The same is true for most of their generation who emigrated after WWII.
False argument There's no "deferring of sales tax" It's due at time of purchase of goods or services.
Didn't know I was doing that. So, why do you continue to refuse to acknowledge that those in the higher brackets pay a higher effective rate overall than those in the lower ones? That the Buffett rule is based on cherry picking a few special cases?
We know there are some high income people like Buffet that are paying at a lower rate than many middle class people. The question is how many. This Buffet BS has been going on for a year now and you would think that we would have actual data from the IRS as to how many there are, what exemptions they are using, etc. Then at least we could have a debate on the actual data. The fact that we don;t tells me that those seeking to raise taxes are more interested in fanning the flames of class warfare than a real solution.
One thing that stinks here is that Obama keeps referring to Buffet's secretary as just that, a secretary. That leaves the impression that she's just a typical secretary earning maybe $40K. Yet she is supposed to be paying 30% in taxes. I've seen estimates that she must be earning more like $300K to be paying that high of a rate. Whatever she is earning, it's clear she's not your typical secretary. And working for Buffet, I'd be very surprised if she did not also have income that was being taxed at 15%, ie capital gains. Like she;s working for Buffet and she has no stock options at Bershire Hathway?
I say since they chose to make this an issue it's time for both of them to release their tax returns for the last
3 years so we can all see the truth.
Another thing that's rotten to the core is that in the case of Romney, they say he paid a tax rate of around 13%. They neglect to mention that the 13% is being calculated on his total income. He gave a substantial amount to charity, so that reduced his income subject to tax. He never really had the income. If you do the rate based on the amount he paid in taxes on the income that he kept, then it's not 13%, but significantly higher. Same thing may be going on with Buffet, but again, we don't know because we don't have his return.
But then this is part of the liberal agenda too. They don't want individuals to be encouraged to give directly to charity. They want you to send all your money to them so the govt can then decide where it should go and the liberals then get credit for "helping" folks, not you.
Kurt Ullman wrote in news:EqOdnbNk5r8nlg3SnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
Obviously you are, by your continuing insistence on the next sentence:
Because it's a false statement. The truth is that *some* in the higher brackets pay a higher effective rate, and some don't. To imply, as you consistently have, and continue to do, that this is true of *all* of them is false. Regardless of income level, income derived from long- term capital gains is *always* taxed at a significantly *lower* rate than income derived from wages or salaries.
" snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@z38g2000vbu.googlegroups.com:
Although I have a different philosophy, I do agree with quite a bit of what you are saying here. OTOH, in previous decades we didn't have that much of a deficit as a % of GDP, even during recessions, but did have higher tax rates. Which points again to the nonsense of reducing taxes while increasing expenditures. Although combating unemployment and recession by stimulating the economy is a time-honored tradition. I also like to point to the drastic cuts in expenditures in some European countries, that is not yet helping their economies. We appear to live in times where the easy way to combat deficits isn't feasible anymore, due to the interrelatedness of the world's economies. That used to be devaluation of one's currency, a much used tactic in the past. When I was a teenager, the French franc had devalued so much that "new" francs were issued, valued at 1:1000 I believe ...
WHen have I said that. I have ALWAYS mentioned that these are on average which, by definition means that some are above and some are below. I have merely stated over and over again, that Buffett rule and similar are cherry picking a small group and then saying it is unfair that rich people get these benefits. While there are some that probably do, they are not only few and far between, but are usually related to some very individualized circumstances. If Buffett does, indeed, pay more than his secretary is largely because of choices he makes (and is in a relatively rare position to make), not because of large inherent inequities in the system. Most people in the higher brackets pay a higher percentage of their income than do those in the lower. Period. Yahoo's fact checkers note: On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government. The 10 percent of households with the highest incomes pay more than half of all federal taxes. They pay more than 70 percent of federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office. There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service. But that's less than 1 percent of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above $1 million. This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of
**29.1 percent** of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes and other taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank. Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay an average of
**15** percent of their income in federal taxes. Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5 percent of their income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay **5.7 percent** (emphasis mine and note how the average goes up as the income goes down??). The latest IRS figures are a few years older ? and limited to federal income taxes ? but show much the same thing. In 2009, taxpayers who made $1 million or more paid on average 24.4 percent of their income in federal income taxes, according to the IRS. Those making $100,000 to $125,000 paid on average 9.9 percent in federal income taxes. Those making $50,000 to $60,000 paid an average of 6.3 percent.
Regardless of income level, income
But over ALL of the taxes, the rich pay a higher percentage of their income than do others. You are looking at a relatively small part of the income track even for most rich folks.
Not really. It has been working OK for the US, at least so far. The Euro is another kettle of fish since it is more than one sovereign nation with more than one goal. Euro members really can't inflate their way out of the problems... at least until Germany and/or France run into stormy weather, then we'll see. We'd be having the same problems as Europe is Mississippi was trying to have a different monetary policy then California or Nevada. It is really hard (and I am leaning personally toward impossible) to have a situation where you have a single currency yet multiple soverign nations with multiple monetary needs.
Soverignty without monetary control was a stupid idea; doomed to failure. If the Europeons weren't so toothless, a war wouldn't be surprising. History, and all that...
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