Americans. Too bad the DEMs do not listen to him. If they did, maybe they could rebuild their blue wall. Instead they seem to keep ignoring the normal middle class main stream folks. More regarding the work by David Shor. And the possible consequences for the 2022 election.
57 comments:
They just don't have a lot of hurricanes in West Virginia.
--Hiram
Not much in their regarding hurricanes.
Just a lot of free stuff for Paul that Peter has to pay for.
Are we so sure that Manchin is the one channeling the voice of America?
Polling Report: Budget
Not so long ago, Hillary got criticized for describing the American people as deplorable. Turns out, she would be better off calling them freeloaders.
==Hiram
I have seen those poll results...
The problem the DEMs have is that many of those folks who want "free stuff" do not get out and vote.
I mean there is a reason they want that free stuff after all.
And many of the folks who have to pay for all that "free stuff" are very serious about voting.
So are DEMs interested in representing voters, or losing?
Hiram,
No. Remember when Romney noted that 47% of Americans pay no Income tax and was crucified for stating that fact.
Romney Fact Check
Romney was not crucified for stating the fact, but for calling them "dependent" and "victims", when in fact the vast majority of the 47% are either poor, working class families with children, or senior citizens.
Yes they are dependent on people who pay income taxes. We pay for some or all of their food, healthcare, housing, etc.
Yes many think they are victims who are owed services, money, etc.
What was inaccurate?
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," Romney said in the video. "All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.
"And I mean the president starts out with 48, 49 percent … he starts off with a huge number," Romney continued. "These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. So he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean, that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
It's not an issue of "accuracy", just as it wasn't when folks went after Hillary for the "deplorable" comment or Obama for the "cling to guns or religion" comment. It's about how you characterize large segments of the country's population when you're running for President of the United States.
(Although if we want to talk about accuracy, too, it's fair to point out that the very tax breaks that exempted the 47% from paying taxes were broadly supported by Republicans.)
Sorry but "deplorable" is a moral judgment. And adding "irredeemable" made it worse.
Saying that someone who receives a lot of services and money from the government dependent is just accurate.
"cling to guns or religion" seems somewhere in between. I do not remember that being a big deal. I just remember "you can keep your doctor"... :-)
The GOP seems fine with helping the dependent folks. That does not mean that they desire to give them a free ride like the Progressives.
Remember when Romney noted that 47% of Americans pay no Income tax and was crucified for stating that fact.
I do. It was such an incredibly stupid thing to say, and in retrospect, the ways it was stupid are even clearer.
What has changed, of course, is that it has become widely known that rich people pay very little in income tax. Donald Trump's annual income tax bill rarely reaches four figures. Now I knew that at a time, and Mitt Romney must have known it too. What he sold his rich clients were tax advantaged investments. I am sure he still has the glossy brochures.
But what was clear at the time was his insensitivity to, or perhaps ignorance of, how most Americans live, particularly poor and low income Americans. For most people, taxes are a burden even if they don't pay income taxes. They have to pay sales taxes, and those taxes are particulary high in states with no income taxes. They have to pay property taxes, and they are burdened by employment taxes. I have no doubt that no aspect of Mitt Romney's lifestyle has been negatively affected by his tax burden. He owns as many ski chalets in Utah as is heart desires. That is not true for that 47% of Americans, he chose to identify.
--Hiram
Yes the 47% pay taxes. However most of them get more back in free money and services than they pay in.
That is why we have progressive income and property taxes... To pay those bills.
However most of them get more back in free money and services than they pay
Sure. They get roads and schools and an army that protects them. Just like rich people who don't pay taxes.
--Hiram
"We pay for some or all of their food, healthcare, housing, etc."
Also true of virtually everyone in this country in some form or fashion, not just the 47%.
I have been rewatching "Band of Brothers", the WW II docudrama available on HBO Max. It's the show's 20th anniversary, and there is a new podcast as well.
Speaking of what we pay in taxes, and what we get in return, I think it was in the opening episode, they interviewed one of the actual, surviving members of Easy company, the Airborne unit that the series follows through the end of the war. He talks about how when they came through for volunteers for the various units, they came to airborne. Well, this guy didn't know what an airborne unit was, he barely understood the concept of planes. But then they said, members of airborne units got an extra 50 bucks a month, and the guy immediately raised his hand.
I have been thinking of that guy a lot lately. We talk a lot about freedom and the constitution and rights and duties and we play the national anthem at ball games. But when you get down to it, humanity is saved by a guy who is willing to jump out of an airplane, under fire, in the middle of the night, for the extra 50 bucks a month it pays.
--Hiram
Sean,
Oh please... More apples and oranges...
Peter pays $100,000 per year in taxes.
Paul pays $5,000 per year in taxes.
Same roads, police, farm programs, schools, etc...
But Paul gets free or subsidized food, healthcare, housing, etc
Our system is already pretty progressive... And Progressives want more as usual.
Hiram,
Now if people had to actually do something for their $50 that would be a different story.
Unfortunately many of the "food, healthcare, housing, etc" programs require no learning, effort, etc.
If you are a questionable parent on assistance and have another child, we just raise the amount you are given... It is SO Strange...
Rich people benefit from America lot more than poor people.
--Hiram
That does not mean that the poor people should get a free ride.
Or do you think they should pay even less taxes and get even more benefits?
I guarantee you that Peter is getting completely different roads, police, and schools in his neighborhood compared to Paul.
Oh come now... I live in the "inner ring" and drive around a fair amount...
The roads, police and schools seem pretty similar...
Of course, if you have more challenges in some communities...
Should they be given ever more public resources and state aid?
That does not mean that the poor people should get a free ride.
Poor people pay plenty in taxes. That's what Mitt totally missed, and I find it surprising that he did. I would think how people pay taxes, how taxes work, are basic things any politician should know. You can't read the New York Times or Wall Street Journal on a daily basis, and not have a feeling for that. Among other things, I wondered where Mitt got his information. Did he not read a national newspaper?
--Hiram
Ah... But if you are a single parent with 2 kids who pays $5,000 in...
And gets $30,000 worth of health insurance, food stamps, housing assistance, subsidized childcare, child tax credit, earned income tax credit, financial assistance for higher ed, etc...
That is one helluva bargain. :-)
And since the government does not have a money tree. We know that people like myself pay more so those checks can be written and services provided.
America is a bargain. No one knows that better than the rich who don't pay taxes.
--Hiram
Source please...
There was a lot of news coverage recently, and it's something I have talked about for years. Rich people pay virtually no income tax because their wealth doesn't come from income. That's why tinkering with the income tax code won't address the issue. More recent news reports talk about how the wealthy secrete their wealth in offshore accounts or in the form of offshore assets. This is and always has been the reason why a wealth tax as laudable as the idea may be, has always been considered ineffective.
In various discussion forums, I often get asked, how much money do you have to have in order to be considered rich. A request for that kind of specific in a discussion is an attempt to pin people down, and is useful when they are being evasive. But I think that question shows a misunderstanding of the nature of wealth and how people are rich. If people are well off but if their wealth comes from asset appreciation and not income, I consider them rich. Tax avoidance is, and always has been the key to becoming hugely wealthy.
--Hiram
Well appreciating assets can not make the house payment, insurance bills, travel bills, etc.
The reality is that most wealthy Americans have big expenses and therefore pay a lot of income and/or capital gains tax.
Well appreciating assets can not make the house payment, insurance bills, travel bills, etc.
Of course they can. And they can pay for rocket ships too.
Every once in while, there is an article in the newspaper about h.ow some rich guy is really struggling like the rest of us. What with nanny wages, the limousine costs, and of course that little place in Gstaad isn't cheap. There is poverty, and there is what feels like poverty when people spend close to what they make. They are not the same.
--Hiram
"Well appreciating assets can not make the house payment, insurance bills, travel bills, etc."
Sure they can. That's how virtually every professional sports franchise is financed. The owners borrow operating funds against the appreciating value of the team.
I think you gentlemen are confusing the businesses that these individual's own with their personal wealth and income.
And if you want to go there, how many people do poor people hire?
How many do you employee?
Jeff Bezos / Amazon employee ~1.3 Million employees and has been driving up wages across the country. I am not sure what you want from business owners?
Now I am happy to cut some of the "loop holes" to ensure people and businesses pay rather than avoid. And to make sure the hedge fund folks pay like everyone else... But the "they do not pay their fair share" stuff gets real old.
If they were paying taxes and hiring... Our country would be in a world of hurt.
I am very aware of difference between owning stock in a company, and running a company. Jeff Bezos is wealthy, not because he made a really good salary as an employee, he is wealthy because of his ownership share.
Rich people aren't taxed because of a loophole. They aren't taxed because of the way our income taxes are structured. As for hiring people, it's Bezos the wage earner who hires people, not Bezos the shareholder. I often complain that in our economy, we reward paper shuffling, as opposed to people who do actual work. But when I am talking about that, I am talking about people who buy and sell companies, reorganize paper assets, sometimes for just to create tax sheltered vehicles for ultra wealthy investors.
A lot of people think government should be run like a business. That's something Republicans used to say, but then it turned out their idea of a businessman was a guy who played one on TV. In 2012, they did run an actual, successful businessman for president. But they couldn't do what someone like Bezos or Gates might have done. They couldn't run commercials about how Romney changed and enriched communities where his businesses operated. That's because they couldn't do it. His business didn't make businesses better, he just reshuffled their associated paper.
--Hiram
When the news stories came out about how the rich don't pay taxes, I was genuinely startled by the reaction, and how even people who should know better seemed to misunderstand the news. People are convinced, in fact seem incapable of understanding, that the rich didn't become rich because they had high salaries or were efficient coupon clippers. Senators, even, said the solution to this problem was to change how we tax income. We should raise rates, or eliminate all those hated loopholes. Deductions should be limited, we were told. All of these things were so completely beside the point, so utterly irrelevant to what was actually going on. Nothing you can do to how we tax income can have any effect at all on wealth that doesn't come from income.
--Hiram
You keep jumping around.
Yes. Some "corporate raiders" were unethical scum. And hopefully we have slowed those harmful efforts.
However as you note, most wealthy people are wealthy because they are smart, educated, work hard, choose to invest their money, etc.
And you seemingly want to tax them more and more for making these good choices.
So you can give that money to people who make different choices?
most wealthy people are wealthy because they are smart, educated, work hard, choose to invest their money, etc.
I used to hear about people who were neighbors of Warren Buffet in Omaha back in the 1950's. They happened to buy a couple shares in his company because what the heck, it seemed the neigborly thing to do. Today, they are among the richest people in America. And the fact is, they found that owning Berkshire Hathaway required hardly any work at all.
We don't tax people because we want to make a judgment on their lives. We tax people to pay for stuff we all need.
--Hiram
Ah... But when you choose to make some citizens pay far more dollars per year than others...
And giving other citizens far more than they pay in...
Taxation then becomes a social issue. Not a financial issue.
But when you choose to make some citizens pay far more dollars per year than others.
I took this history course recently about France. French Society at one point was divided in three parts. There was the clergy, the aristocracy, and the commoners. The first two didn't pay taxes, they served the nation in other ways. The clergy prayed for it, and the aristocracy administered it and defended it from it's enemies. That left the burden of paying for the state, the taxes on the commoners, the people. This system worked remarkably well for a thousand years. For practically all of that time nobody had a problem. And then one day they did, and the French Revolution ensued.
We can try to believe a system where the rich do not pay taxes, that they serve other useful purposes, makes sense. It is the way our tax system has always worked. But what happens when, one day, it no longer makes sense?
--Hiram
Hiram,
Well in this country the top 25% of households pay 87% of the income taxes.
Which is then distributed to the bottom 50% who only pay 3% of the income taxes.
The "commoners" in all of history never had it so good. :-)
Well in this country the top 25% of households pay 87% of the income taxe
The problem is that wealthy Americans do no pay income taxes. Your fraction therefore is irrelevant. Bezos pays 40 percent of his income in taxes, but he just doesn't have income.
And of course Bezos has benefitted vastly more from American than poor people.
--Hiram
You can keep saying this... But it does not make it true.
"wealthy Americans do no pay income taxes"
As my source clearly notes... The top 1% pay 40% of the income taxes.
The top 1% pay 40% of the income taxes
If they pay forty percent of their income in taxes, they simply are not wealthy. The frequently referred to factoid you cite assumes what we know not to be truth that wealth is generated by income.
Remember in order to pay income taxes at any rate, one must have income. Income plays a very small role in how people are wealthy. Donald Trump for example, is a billionaire and went years in this century without paying any income tax at all. His case is not uncommon.
--Hiram
So again. How do the 1% pay 40% of the income taxes if they pay no income taxes?
I understand that much of their wealth is tax sheltered as unrealized long term capital gains. And that you want them to pay on that.
But the reality is that even with that they have far more income and pay far more income taxes than most of us.
Here is another interesting piece
How do the 1% pay 40% of the income taxes if they pay no income taxes?
The one percent are income earners. The wealth of the wealthy does not come from income. And if you think about it, it makes sense. America simply cannot pay for an America based on Donald Trump's tax bill of 750 dollars a year.
--Hiram
Not even the wealthy can avoid income... Or income taxes...
The rich have income, it is true. Occasionally they find change in the conches. Some even pay themselves salaries. But income has nothing to do with why they are wealthy.
--Hiram
Why do you care if they are wealthy?
If they are paying far more than you or I to keep this country running?
I am sure I pay far more in income tax than Donald Trump. Most people do.
When I am on the other side of this argument, what I point out is that it is hard to tax wealth, because each of us has the capability to take advantage of many of the tax avoidance strategies that serve the uber wealthy so well. All it takes is the will and the cash.
--Hiram
I have no idea, all they ever tell us about is the years he made no income and had huge losses. And for some reason the IRS has not called him on it?
Maybe the courts will find his magic formula to be illegal.
Personally I am happy when I am profitable and pay taxes.
This has an interesting graphic at the bottom
I have no idea, all they ever tell us about is the years he made no income and had huge losses.
Well, people who entrusted their money to Donald Trump did lose it when he went bankrupt. He managed to come out of it rather well, however.
But the reason looking at income taxes paid isn't relevant to rich people is that they don't have significant income in relative terms. Any chart focusing on income and taxes paid is beside the point.
--Hiram
You keep concerning yourself with their wealth / savings.
Not sure why...
We need to pay for stuff.
But in general, and quite apart from the political issues, it is really worthwhile to ask, how does one get wealthy? It's something worth knowing about if one would like to get rich.
Hiram
Well that is not too difficult:
- be born into a wealthy family
- marry into a wealthy family
- get adopted into a wealthy family
- learn, work, save, invest, repeat... train next generation to do the same...
- learn, work, take smart risks, work, grow business, work, etc
- Find oil while shooting at a varmint
I am interested in how people build vast fortunes. It's like John D. Rockefeller. How did a guy who started out as a teenage shipping clerk on the docks of Cleveland become the wealthiest man in the world at the time. Bill Gates' father was a wealthy and successful Seattle lawyer, but Steve Jobs' dad was a mechanic. None of them got rich from their paychecks or from clipping coupons. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil, didn't get rich by discovering oil.
--Hiram
Probably this one...
"- learn, work, take smart risks, work, grow business, work, etc"
Lots of smart people aren't rich. Lots of dumb people. In terms of risk, let's just say few rich people take the risks a worker at a typical Home Depot store takes. As for hard work, hardly any people work in coal mines.
If we taxed people based on merit, a lot of rich people I can think of would see their tax bills increased quite significantly.
--Hiram
You need to do everything right...
- learn, work, take smart risks, work, grow business, work, etc...
And even them you may fail...
And yes you have to take the correct risks...
Going into a mine or standing under a forklift are unlikely to help you get rich.
Now taking a commission based job...
Investing big in something you are sure of...
Moving to that new job in a new city...
Quitting your job to start a new business...
Many of us are not suited to taking those risks...
Including myself.
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